


A Certain Sense of Synergy Between Yourself and Me

by queenklu



Category: Smallville RPF, Supernatural RPF
Genre: Fanfiction, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-21
Updated: 2010-09-21
Packaged: 2017-10-12 02:05:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 29,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/119593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenklu/pseuds/queenklu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Misha Collins gets groped by Michael Rosenbaum before meeting him, which he finds out later is pretty much par for the course. Life ensues—twitter and Taken and sucking fuzzy balls (not like that (maybe)) and somewhere in there, falling head over heels stupid in love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Certain Sense of Synergy Between Yourself and Me

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: Um. Misha's still married. Consensual and supported extramarital affairs? IDEK.
> 
> A/N: This is a sort of sequel to [Let's Get Wrecked on Poptarts and Sex](http://queenklu.livejournal.com/73938.html), but you don't have to read it first! If you'd like some background info on Mike and Misha, [welcome to my life.](http://queenklu.livejournal.com/116165.html)
> 
> Oh P.S. there's a [soundtrack](http://queenklu.livejournal.com/116871.html).

“Oops, missed!” the tall woman squeaks with a flash of white teeth over her sequined shoulder when she releases Misha’s ass, strawberry blond curls bouncing as she makes a running leap, literally, into Jensen’s arms. Or…okay, more around his middle, her neon green heels locking behind his back as Jensen nearly breaks a lamp trying to stay upright (not that he’s particularly steady to begin with—they are at Tom’s house after all).

“Jesus Christ, Mike!”

Misha blames the pure priceless look of abject awkward horror on Jensen’s face on the fact that it took him this long to realize the woman is a man—a tall, very well cross-dressed man, but still—then he shakes off his matching expression and tells himself he knew it all along. He was on NPR, you know.

“Jennnnnnn,” the blond croons, heels dropping with a slam that makes everyone within a five foot radius jump. “Jen. Jen. Jensen? Jen,” he breathes every time Jensen snaps, “ _What?”_ and his costar snickers into his cup. “Hey, Jared. Jen? Remember? That one time? When we were chained up and tortured? Shirtless? Yeah? Remember the moaning and the writhing and—"

“Seriously,” Jensen asks, trying to pry this person far enough away from himself to follow the line of their dress, “ _where_ are your balls right now?”

“Dude, not in front of your boyfriend,” the…Transgendered One chides in a nice, steady tenor, flicking his bangs out of his eyes. “Jeez. Talk about insensitive.”

Misha’s pretty much catalogued every one of Jared and Jensen’s programmed responses to being called a couple. This…is not one of them. He’s pretty sure. He could be wrong. Jared lets out a huff of air like a—well, like a Winchester, and Jensen just pastes on a smile and makes a show of trying to edge away, and even drunk that doesn’t sit right.

Shirley Temple spins Jensen back with very little effort and some painful-looking inch-long nails. “Thank god though, seriously, for you, Jen-Jen. I _told_ Tom I wouldn’t be the only one dressed like a ho!”

“I’m not,” Jensen grits out with the force of someone knowing they’re walking into it.

“Aw, just that naturally pretty.” Shirley purses his lips and pats Jensen’s cheek with the broad part of his hand, and Jared’s laugh sounds a little too loud. Misha does that pinky-squeaky thing to his ear, mostly because he’s always wanted to.

“You seriously went through all that trouble for one joke, didn’t you?” the freakishly tall man (and yeah, even in heels Shirley Temple isn’t competition for a Padalecki) says, still laughing, as he leans a little closer into Jensen’s space. It’s pretty normal Jensen’s-at-a-party-feeling-claustrophobic Jared behavior—though how Jared ever worked out that _crowding_ someone feeling closed in was a good plan is a mystery, but it seems to work for them.

“Fuck you, way more than one.” Pouting again, lips slicked with some sort of sparkly gloss, and this time Jensen’s smiling too. Hell, even Misha’s smiling, and he’s not technically part of this conversation.

“Hey,” the cross-dresser stage whispers, fake eyelashes fanning as he kind of stumbles a little into Jared, “you know that friend of yours is looking pretty ridiculous. Might want to let him know.”

“Yes,” Jensen says, teeth close together in his smile, “because _that_ would be embarrassing.”

Misha’s a little bit crushed. He’s…not even sure why Tom even hasChristmas tree lights in July, or how they got tangled around his legs in such a way that he can’t really move, or, really, why he’s chewing on the fuzzy end of a Christmas hat that’s somehow fastened on his head. Misha thinks it is _way_ too easy to get drunk at Tom’s parties. And also that these so-called friends of his should stand up for him in the face of transsexual harassment.

He should probably be a little more upset about being groped than called silly-looking, but.

Here’s how his mind works (especially his drunken mind, so to be more accurate, here’s how his highly inebriated train of thought goes): Not many guys pinch Misha’s butt. Okay, maybe they do, but they don’t _mean_ it. Jared and Jensen have to be at least gay friendly, because he knows they read fanfiction and that stuff aint exactly riddled with good-ol’-boy-on-girl sex. So odds are, then, that this random guy they know and seem to be not surprised about seeing wearing a dress—odds are better than slim, right? Misha’s been staring down the barrel of slim for a long fucking while. Vodka is definitely playing a part in his decision making skills.

Plus the fuzzy ball he’s chewing on kind of tastes like spit, so he spits it out. And smiles.

“Hi!” he says, leaning in as far as the lights will let him so this guy doesn’t have to work to see his hand, “I’m Misha.” It comes out sort of Mi-SHAH, but that’s what happens when you can’t feel your lips.

He’s watching the beautifully made-up face and keeping his own amused and interested-but-could-still-be-in-a-just-friends-way (he thinks, he’s not really sure, everything’s sort of numb right now), but he’s caught a little at. Well. This guy—you know, he has. Cheekbones. Like most people. But, you know. _Jesus_. Plus a pair of stormy grey blue eyes that Misha could probably stare at forever if someone let him, and this mouth that—

Shirley Temple drops his hand into Misha’s from above, and Misha smacks a kiss on his knuckles without skipping a beat. As his minions would say, he wins at life.

Until the man tilts his curls to the side and simpers, “Michael Rosenbaum,” like a five year old girl, then straightens and flings his arms out, eyes locked on someone well on the other side of the room. “Fuck yes, there’s Justin,” he growls around a pure evil grin, “Watch me, boys.”

“Wait,” Jensen says, trying to catch onto his arm, “What are you—"

“I’m Daisy Mae, don’t you know, Justin’s blind date.”

And Michael fucking Rosenbaum flounces off.

“ _That’s_ Rosenbaum,” Misha half-mouths the instant the cross-dresser’s turns his back, because, “Jared! What the hell?”

“Hey, he’s not…usually in a dress,” Jared wheedles, easing away without actually going anywhere. Okay, now it’s just ridiculous. There’s plenty of room in this hallway and Jensen is still plastered against Jared’s side like there’s a demon hoard of ponies passing by. Misha is pissed off for reasons he’s not entirely clear on.

“You!” he snaps, latching onto the first one that pops into his brain, " _You_ told me…he was nothing like the fans said!”

“In that, you know, he’s not really dating Tom, I think?”

Jared does not win at life. Jared, in fact, _Alohas life hard._

Misha’s eyes narrow, voice dropping to a slightly slurred growl. “You let me meet Mike Rosenbaum while I was sucking a fuzzy Santa ball.”

“Dude, whose fault was that?” Jensen snorts, not attractively, shifting away from Jared’s arm as it goes to wrap around his shoulders, and what. The hell. Maybe Santa’s balls were filled with Twilight Zone juice.

Unfortunately while Misha’s edging away, the Christmas lights are not so forgiving.

“Ow, ow, Jesus!” They’re all preemptive ‘ow’s, because it turns out (hallelujah!) he isnot actually too drunk to fail at catching himself against the other wall, pausing to delicately kick and twist his feet until they slip free from the twinkling loops. If he makes several soft distressed noises while he does it, well. It’s harder than it looks.

It’s harder than the Js are giving him credit for, that’s for damn sure. Jensen’s even twitchy while they snicker, like maybe Jared’s been wearing thick wool socks and scuffing his feet on the carpet all evening and zapping him every time their elbows touch. It’s entirely possible. Padazaps.

“I think I need to go home before I start showing off blowjob yoga,” he mumbles, mostly to himself, and doesn’t look at the way that Jensen’s still so close he’s practically begging to be zapped. Okay, maybe a little. Misha’s mouth falls open on its own accord. “What is with you two?”

“OUT OF THE WAY!”

It’s a huge bellow and nearly knocks Misha flat before Mike gets a chance to, one of his diamond-studded nails missing and his wig askew as he careens to a stop just behind Misha at precisely the same moment Some _Huge_ Guy takes a swing at him.

Misha blocks it with his face.

There’s a loud burst of noise, commotion, and scuffle as Jared has to use a little more than his considerable height to make the Huge Ass Guy back off, but for some reason all Misha can hear is the soft, “Oh—my god!” in his ear when he sort of crumples backward into Mike’s arms. There’s another soft curse and a lurch, like maybe one of the neon heels gave out, and then Misha’s on the floor between Mike’s very manly unshaven legs, soft hairs of his thighs visible between the silvery fishnets this close. One of Misha’s hands is holding on just above Mike’s knee, but he’s a little more concerned with the other one, seeing as there’s _blood gushing into it_.

“I’m so sorry,” Mike murmurs, just loud enough to not be a whisper and so close to Misha’s face because—well, that’s Mike’s shoulder the bejeweled hand on his forehead is leaning him back on, so that’s the side of Mike’s jaw against Misha’s temple sending vibrations down Misha’s spine every time he talks. “I didn’t think he’d actually swing.”

“Juthtin not tho apprethative of hith date?” Misha blunders around his nose, adrenaline making his heart pump a little faster, making him feel like one throbbing (not in the fun way) pulse between Mike’s…okay this isn’t getting any better.

“Nah.” He can hear the smile in his voice when Mike answers, and it isn’t anywhere near mean. “Justin was plenty appreciative. His boyfriend? Not so much.”

“Oh.” There should definitely be more to say after that, at least a monologue or two on the tragedy of homosexual misconceptions, but Misha’s brain shuts down, every ounce of blood not dribbling out his nose redirected to his face to provide optimum shading.

“I think that guy was my stunt double,” the blond-as-of-this-moment muses through a quick grin. Misha would look to see if Huge Ass Guy has been escorted off the premises, but Mike’s hand won’t let him move. Of course he knows all about how tilting your head back with a nosebleed is Bad—choke on your blood and die, Bad—but he’s always figured that was for mentally deficient people who forgot how to swallow. Besides, this is kind of nice. Considering.

“Oh,” he struggles out after a moment, "Thuckth to be you.”

Mike laughs, one obscene Shirley Temple curl bouncing into Misha’s eyes. “Not so much right now, would you believe.”

Misha blinks, gulping one last time as he pulls away enough to meet—Damn, they really are stupidly blue. Maybe it’s the eyeliner, but something’s telling Misha it’s not just that. “If thith ith your high…” He even manages a lopsided smile, though it can’t be pretty.

Mike—well, Mike looks serious for the first time this evening, and those cheekbones definitely pack an even bigger punch so damn close. Misha is suddenly acutely aware of just how gruesome the blood on his face probably is, and his smile vanishes as his hand drops to scrub at it.

“Oh, hey, wait a second!” Mike gasps like he’s discovered the cure to cancer in his D-cups, but it’s only a washcloth. “Let me just—" There’s a tub of slick bottled beers bobbing in half-melted ice about three feet away, and Mike has to all but lay down to reach it, leaving Misha flailing for a second before he reappears with an freezing but damp piece of cloth.

“But won’t, uh—lopsided,” Misha tries, arching away when Mike goes for his face because _come on_. Even drunk, how much humiliation in one night is he supposed to stand?

Blue eyes spark. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll grab a couple airline pillows and have the biggest tits in Christendom.”

Misha snorts and—wow. Bad. Fucking. Plan. Forced to grab for the cloth and press it to his nose, it feels even colder than it should with the heat radiating off his face.

“Eddie Izzard,” he chokes out softly when he can, because the other man’s still studying him.

Mike… _beams_.

No, _really_. It’s worse—better?—than _Jared’s._ And Mike doesn’t even have _dimples._

Misha might be a little bit fucked.

“Alright, that’s it.” Mike’s hand shoves out expectantly, and Misha winces but goes to return the washcloth until those sharp nails click together with a snap. “Phone.”

“What?” But Lex Luthor in drag already has his hand stuffed in Castiel’s—alright, okay, they’re Misha’s—jeans, yanking out his phone, and seriously, how did their hips get this close? He’s so confused and stunned and kind of nauseous (thanks, Vodka + blood loss) that by the time he unknots his frown the cell’s back in it’s pocket, Mike’s almost on his feet, and Misha has a long, long appointment with his bed he’s running late for. Or with the floor, he’s not so picky.

“Give me a yell, I’ll buy you a coffee to make up for getting—" Mike mimes a cold-clock, complete with sound effects, then scratches at the top of Misha’s head like he’s a dog. Misha does not close his eyes and lean into it.

But when he blinks his vision is sequin-free, and Jensen’s leaning into his space going, “How many fingers, babushka?” and Misha has to smack him for that, even if he misses and hits Jared instead.

“If I twit about Michael Rosenbaum pinching my ass and then getting me punched out at a faux Christmas party, who would believe me?” he asks—sort of, it’s kind of slurred and nasally—on the way home, tucked next to Jared in the backseat so he won’t fall over.

“No one,” Jensen answers, flipping on the turn signal. “It wasn’t a Christmas party.”

“Also,” Jared says in a way that makes Misha want to protest that he is the oldest one in the car, dammit, “the Queen of England wasn’t there.”

“…True facts,” he says, and passes out.

~*~

 _Stand! By! Your! MAAAAAAAN! Und show da vurld you luff ‘eem!_

Misha groans in agony, pressing the pillow down hard enough over his face that maybe, just maybe, he will suffocate and die.

 _Stand! By! Your! MAAAAAAAN! Und show da vurld you luff ‘eem!_

Oh god. Oh fuck and god. He’s not entirely sure how much of that is aloud, so he makes sure to at least pass air through his larynx when he peels the phone apart mid- _Und_. “Maaaaaaaugh.”

“Aw, I love you too.”

“Muh,” Misha says, a pathetic little whimper of sound that makes the she-devil on the other line cackle. Okay, it’s still bell-like laughter, but, “ _Uggnuh_.” His mouth tastes like he ate Uriel.

“Honey, I’m worried about you.”

“Die.”

“I don’t think you’re getting enough vegetables.”

“Victoriaaaa,” he hisses, her name three times as long.

“Mishaaaaa,” she mimics, then goes quiet. Serious. He tries to stop clawing the pillow, grunts a cough until he can sort of talk.

“Hey. What’s wrong?” Except it sort of comes out, “Hn. Wassrng?” He’s very lucky she’s so good at speaking Hangover, suddenly so grateful he wishes she was there to make his bed a little warmer.

“Sweetheart…” She sighs, and he knows it’s that one where she rakes her hair away from her face. “I’m your wife, okay? When I say I worry about you, I really, really mean it.”

He whines, a little contrite sound thick in his throat, which to anyone else would sound like he’s blowing her off. They’re two of the handful of people who know better. “Sorry,” he whispers, and means it.

“Misha, when’s the last time you had a boyfriend?”

His breath sticks in his throat a second, and then sweeps out in a rush, hand feeling suddenly heavy on his stomach. “’S been a while.”

“Since Jackson, yeah?” It’s not really a question, and Misha’s lips twist anyway in an ironic little whatever that would make someone smile if they could see it. He can hear Vicky moving around like she’s getting milk from the fridge, and kind of misses being there to third wheel it. “Baby, it’s not like I think you can’t take care of yourself, you know that. I just don’t want you being all alone up there.”

“Jared and Jensen—" he fumbles.

“—are joined at the hip and working 24/7. And, quite possibly, fucking like rabbits in between.”

He thinks about it. “ _No_ …”

“Focus, Mishmash. Just. Make a friend or two, okay? And get your pretty ass laid once in a while, while you’re at it. I’m an author, you know,” she says like it means something. “Oh and honey? Don’t stick out your tongue unless you’re prepared to use it.”

“I’m…partying with unicorns,” he grumbles, half into his pillow as he pulls his tongue back inside his mouth, “You don’t even know.”

“Unless ‘unicorns’ is Canadian for ‘three naked sex gods,’ I am severely underwhelmed. And I’m coming up in a week and a half to check on you, by the way.”

“ _Grade_ me,” he translates.

“Mm, keep that in mind for you and a potential boy toy. Hey, you could be the naughty student, and some big strapping man could stand over you with a ruler—you know, if he was really toppy. I know you’ve said you’re flexible—”

“I’m sending my minions to kill you,” he promises and hangs up, shuts his eyes. Doesn’t think about Shirley Temple curls and a pleated plaid skirt. Definitely doesn’t think about broad cheekbones or blue eyes. Or coffee.

Ohhhh…coffee…aspirin…sleep…

Minions…

~*~

Misha Collins is a twitter whore—a Twhore, if you will—and he kind of loves it. It’s easy and fun, _hilarious_ sometimes, and it’s the fastest sort of rush to have every one of his supporters—his minions, his fans—at the touch of a button. He never really considered twitting anything about last night, not really. He has strict Victoria-lain down rules, and number one is never talking about real life. No matter how implausible it might seem.

Also, the hell is he going for coffee with Rosenbaum. That’s just. That’s no.

If he was maybe feeling sad and pathetic (because let’s face it, Rosenbaum didn’t see him at his slightly okay, let alone his best) it’s greatly alleviated by a youtube link in his twinbox from a minion in freaking _Scotland_ who found his name in a rap song and made an entirely too cool vid declaring minion infiltration and eventual world dominance.

Maybe Victoria is right about him needing a boyfriend.

He is so much cooler online. Like that one country song.

“Hey, babushka, how’s that nose?” Jared’s face is suddenly very, very close, grinning far too big for how early it is. Misha bites at Jared’s schnoz in retaliation, makes lots of noise doing it so Jared knows to duck.

“Please inform your skanky costar,” he drawls once Shannon’s ripped him back in the makeup chair by the scalp, “—thanks for driving me home, by the way—that neither of you may use that nickname ever again. You’re giving the minions ideas.” Regal wave of his iphone.

“Oh, yeah?” Jared laughs, letting Bonnie clip his bangs back, “What do they call you?”

“…Touché.” He twits something to the universe and returns his attention to Jared and the empty seat next to him. “Jensen grabbing breakfast or something?”

Jared shrugs, gaze fixed on the ceiling. “I dunno. Maybe.”

That. Is weird. Even the makeup girls know it, exchanging glances over their heads. Jared has a built in Jendar (it’s Jensen + radar, which is not nearly as fun a word as Jaydar), so he’s either deliberately not telling them, or—

“You two okay?”

“What?” Jared asks, eyes wide. “Yeah!”

“And it’s only half an octave too high.”

“Shut up.” His legs are entirely too long if they can kick Misha’s shin without dislodging Bonnie.

“Ow!”

“Seriously, man, your face okay?”

“Better than my shin. _Or my scalp,_ ” he squeaks as Shannon drags him back again.

“Collins, you either stop moving or I draw Castiel a third eye.”

He kind of wants to go off on that tangent—hell, Castiel could probably _use_ one—but Jared’s still frowning softly at him from the other chair, trying to see beneath the layers of pan stick to the purplish bruise Misha had woken up to along the edge of his cheekbone and nose.

“Yeah, I’m okay,” he sighs, wishing he could scrub a hand through his hair. “Not my proudest moment, getting a roundhouse from Lex Luthor’s stunt double—"

Jared snorts. “Justin is _not_ Mike’s stunt double.”

“What?” He shouldn’t feel like Jared’s telling him the world really is flat. “Rosenbaum said—"

“He was probably trying to make you laugh,” Jared says all facts-of-life like, “You were looking a little shell-shocked, there.”

Sprawled in a male TV star’s skirted lap fisting a bloody nose and half-way to passed out—no, Misha’s quite sure he was the epitome of calm. Fortunately Misha’s brain stalls out there, because then he’d have to think about why Michael Rosenbaum cared about his wellbeing enough to distract him with tales of gay intrigue, and that can’t end well.

“Also, dude. Call him Mike,” Jared adds with a roll of his eyes like Misha called him Swami or Commandant, and yeah.

He’s not getting coffee with Rosen—Mike.

~*~

Two days later his phone buzzes with a text message while he’s waiting for the Winchesters to finish their one-on-one angsting so he can drop in and save the day, monotone tax accountant style.

< _Do you ever think Bumblebee is the gay transformer? >_

Misha snorts and texts back, < _Every day of my life. >_ Jared’s been on a Transformers kick ever since he found this fic starring hapless-college-student-Jensen and Jared-the-motorcycle/sex-bot. Not that Jared knows Misha knows about the fic, but hey. The pages were peeking out of his bag. Misha gets bored sometimes.

It’s not until he gets a reply—< _Ha ha, im dead serious >—_that he realizes…Jared’s being filmed. And Sam’s not texting.

His phone doesn’t recognize the number, which means he’s sort of having a conversation with a complete stranger. About gay transformers. < _Uh. Who is this? >_

There’s a pause, seems like a long time for the text he finally receives. < _Got ur number from jen when u didnt call--fucker, bdw. > _

Misha’s staring at his phone—his _phone_ , which has never lied to him before—and, and it can’t be, except Jensen wouldn’t give Misha’s number to just anyone and wow, Michael Rosenbaum must have lightning fingers or the best damn predictive text on the planet, because it’s barely eight seconds before he gets the next one.

 _< Wasnt kidding about coffee, no funny business. Well, cant promise no laughing. Im amusing guy. And currently very bored, when r u off?> _

He thumbs back < _Five >_ in a daze, doesn’t (can’t?) snap out of it until he’s already hit send. His breath hiccups, would come out in a squeak if he let it. Did he just—What kind of person opens a conversation with a query about fictional mechanical sexual preferences and ends with coffee? A CRAZY PERSON, THAT’S WHO.

< _Nice. Meet me at cafe on whalers st at 530? > _

He… Misha feels something real and queasy settle in his stomach. Mike is Jared and Jensen’s friend. Misha’s made negative effort in getting to know him, and that’s not fair to anyone, let alone the nagging little Victoria voice in his head. It’s not going to kill him, getting coffee. Misha texts back, < _Sure! Sounds great ;D >_ and then nearly kills himself wishing he hadn’t hit send before deleting the stupid little emoticon.

Ten minutes later just as Misha’s about to turn off his phone to go on set he gets another text. All it says is < _;)8 <_ > and the guest director has to call his name twice before he hears it, so caught up in tilting his cell sideways trying to decide if that smiley face has boobs and a skirt.

“Jared,” he says a little hesitantly as they take their marks, “I think I have a man date with Michael Rosenbaum.”

Jared just looks at him, wide eyed and lips tight like he’s trying not to—oh great.

“Poor Sweden,” Jensen forces out through a similar expression. Jared loses it.

Misha halfheartedly rolls his eyes, wishing he was used to it.

~*~

The café on Whaler’s Street is called Bean Here Before, and Misha is quietly panicking within half a block. No amount of tweets calling him Oh Captain, My Captain are calming him down, heart beating so fast he feels sick with it, disgusted with himself.

 _It’s not like this an actual date,_ he reminds himself again as he pockets the taxi change, _This is a perfunctory, casual meeting to erase any awkwardness that might arise if we are in a situation of being within speaking distance again. You know, around the boys. In a crowd. It could happen._

His last hope, that Misha will beat Mike to the café, dissolves surprisingly fast. He’d prepared himself to search the dark corners a little, peer through some Hollywood glasses. Mike is at one of the two-seater tables lined up against the window, very out in the open for a semi-celebrity. Misha isn’t sure what he expected, but it wasn’t this, this clean and casual person in brown sketchers and artfully faded jeans, wearing a grey Guns’n’Roses t-shirt and a NY Rangers ball cap over short brown hair that’s just now starting to grow out after years of being shaved. He looks, uh, young. It makes Misha wish he hadn’t thrown on the suit jacket he’d found in his trailer while he watches the other man lean over the table fiddling with his phone, and Misha’s gaze catches a little on the expanse of his back before—

The Shirley Temple wig is dangling off the back of his chair.

Misha’s mouth twists with something not altogether pleasant, but it does calm his nerves a little, though not enough to approach the table yet.

For all that he’s older than the boys, Misha is seriously the baby of the group. He knows this with a certainty that occasionally rivals that of his own name (what? It’s a doozy). Sometimes being on Supernatural feels tantamount to being thrown into a war zone with an inflatable sword, where all the other fighters are seasoned foam-sword vets. He’s the guy who _didn’t_ pop out of the womb and join the actors guild, and that makes him the newbie on set, wet behind the ears, fresh blood, fresh meat, whatever you want to call it—the refugee in a small southern town. If he doesn’t make the cut (Jesus, his metaphors are almost as bad as Jared’s) that’s it. He’s fucked over for potential years of his life filming this show. No pressure.

And _Mike…_ Mike is that best friend of your girlfriend you have to impress before they’ll sign off on an actual relationship. The only thing worse would be meeting Chris all over again.

He’s never said his reasoning makes any sense.

He takes a deep breath and puts on his convention face.

“So I just have to say one thing,” he says, throwing himself down in the other seat before Mike can even look up, pausing for effect (and a tiny bit of delight) as the actor jumps and nearly drops his phone with a sound between a curse and a laugh. Misha rests his elbows on the table, face as serious as he can stand it. “I hate Megan Fox.”

“More or less than Shia LaBeouf?” Mike says, like they’re in the middle of a conversation, and Misha relaxes in some places and tenses in others at the smile on Mike’s face. Mike has a really…pleasant face.

Which instantly turns guilty when Misha’s phone buzzes with a new message. “Text of the devil?” Mike offers with a shrug that looks startlingly shy, and Misha’s chest feels a little too big for his skin. He’s got a text from Michael Rosenbaum in his pocket. Today is a good day.

What he does, though, because he is a professional and in serious control of the situation (jittering nerves be damned), is arch an eyebrow over his own smile, trying to make his heart rate calm the hell down. This is going too well to last. “Devil? Don’t you watch the show?”

Mike grins a little wolfishly for half a second, then drops his gaze to the coaster under his fingertips. “I’m catching up, slowly but surely. Think I’m about half way through season three?”

Misha drops the attitude like it’s burning him at the honest answer, replies as steadily as he can, “So nowhere near Castiel, then.”

“No,” Mike laughs, though Misha didn’t mean it to be funny, “But I’m definitely looking forward to you gripping Dean tight to raise him from perdition.”

“And lo, Kripke created angel porn.” There’s no reason for him to be hit right then with gratitude for how easy Mike is making this potentially disastrous meeting go, but the sigh slips out in his grin anyway. He has to duck his head and scrub a hand through the back of his already probably unruly hair in an attempt to hide his blush. “You know I—"

“Hey,” Mike cuts him off, “No worries. I know, time runs differently for the unemployed. What seemed like two days to you? Forty years in hell by my count.”

“I would clarify what you said about being on season _three_ …” Misha starts, “but I’m pretty sure we both know trying to remain unspoiled around Jared and Jensen is like standing in the middle of the highway expecting not to be hit by a truck.”

“And yet we keep walking into traffic.”

“You’re seriously unemployed?” Which is quite possibly highly insensitive and Misha opens his mouth to take it back.

“Well, yeah.” It’s those eyes again, smiling harder than the rest of him, and it’s like… Misha gets the distinct impression Mike finds things more amusing than he allows himself to let on. “That’s what happens when you quit a hit TV series and people only know you as Lex Luthor. Oh, but, shh—don’t tell my agent. He thinks we have things ‘in the works.’”

“I know how that goes,” Misha says a little softer than he means, then covers with a wide smile. “So, seriously, you’re not working and you chose to stay in _Canada_ _?_ You couldn’t wait for a role, oh I don’t know, anywhere else?”

“Ahh, I dunno.” Mike’s back to playing with the coaster, and Misha realizes two things simultaneously—1) this feels more like bar talk, and 2) they don’t have drinks. It seems a little late to realize they came here for coffee and haven’t actually gotten any. Or maybe it hasn’t really been that long. “All my friends are here, you know? There’s this casting call in a couple weeks for a new show filming down here but if I don’t get it—I don’t know, feels like the last chance to hang out with people. I just never realized how much of our hanging out was done on set. Actors work crazy hours, who’d a thunk?”

The only time Misha ever watches Smallville is when he catches the tail-end before Supernatural (which he mostly ignores anyway in favor of surfing the net), and in any case, 90% of the time he’s paying attention because he can never remember if Lex Luthor has eyebrows. It’s a really stupid thing to think of now, but he’s half-way to telling the story just to get that vulnerable, self-deprecating shadow out of Mike’s eyes. This person he doesn’t really know at all. But who obviously has eyebrows.

“Can…can I ask you why you quit?” he asks, scratching a little awkwardly at his ear without meeting the other man’s gaze.

“Misha,” Mike laughs like he can’t really help it, “I got your nose bloodied by a homophobe at a Tom Welling party. You can ask me anything.”

Misha waits a couple seconds, warmth filling up his belly at the way Mike said his name—and the way he just confirmed what Jared said—and then Mike’s standing to loop one arm around his shoulders and pull him down from the high chair. It should not feel as okay as it does, but Mike’s hands are solid on his arms and okay, like Victoria pointed out so mercilessly, it has been a while. It’s nice to be manhandled, even if Mike’s only motivation is propelling him to the coffee line. “Come on, don’t let me renig on my promise. Biggest damn bucket of caffeine you can stand, don’t spare the calories or the cost!”

“Uh-huh…” Misha’s not stupid, but he is willing to cut Mike a little slack on not answering the question he shouldn’t have asked.

For the first time Mike really blushes, red enough that if Misha held his hand out he could probably feel the heat, but then Mike’s hands are gone and stuffed in his pockets, shoulders high and smile unsure as he orders. “Double macchiato, room for cream.”

He’s handing over the cash for both their orders (and they’d have to be very oblivious not to notice the glance that gets them) when Misha’s eye catches on the skin on the inside of Mike’s elbow. “Is that a tattoo?”

“What? Oh.” Mike glances down and runs his thumb over the name before flashing Misha a grin. “Yeah.”

“Who’s it for?” he asks as they meander down to the pickup spot. “I mean, uh, it—looked like a name.”

Mike laughs. “It’s okay, it is. It’s my grandmother, Blanche. And my other grandma, Ruth, over here.” He holds his left arm out for Misha to see because it’s closer, and Misha is excessively glad he’s presented with coffee just then so he can’t be tempted to run his fingers over the inked skin. They’re both very small, plain black lettering. And kind of a bizarre choice of tattoo for such a painful location. Misha’s heart gives a little tremble at the contradiction.

Because Misha’s an idiot, the first thing out of his mouth after he’s swallowed his first gulp is exactly what’s on his mind. “You’re not really what I expected.”

“Because I don’t actually have tits?” Mike chirps in a voice high and cheerful enough to make his stomach flip over, not pleasantly.

“Yes, this. Of course,” Misha says instead of gagging, schooling his expression (he’s an actor too, damn it) into one of smirking caught-you-out. “You didn’t expect me to recognize you.”

“I admit nothing,” Mike claims with an aloof wave of his cup, which is pretty much wasted when he shifts to hide the wig from view. “Also, I had no idea what to expect of you, so I think that makes me a better person.”

Misha’s surprised by the sound of his own laughter, and he really shouldn’t be. “Seriously, all this time off, pining for my phone call, and you never once gave me a google?”

Mike’s not pining for him, shut up.

“No,” Mike says, careful and serious after his swallow of coffee, “I never google people I hang out with.”

It sounds—no it doesn’t. Misha wants to tell him, “I’m famous on the internet,” but that feels a little too much like bragging. Or pouting. So instead he says, “Luddite.”

“Hey,” Mike says like there’s hearts and rainbows falling from the sky, “that was in a _Bones_ episode, right?” And kicks him in the shin.

“ _Ow!”_ Misha’s knee slams up, nearly knocking over their table so he can clutch at this morning’s bruise. “You and Padalecki with the shin-kicking!”

Michael Rosenbaum is laughing—nay, giggling like a little girl—at his pain. “Where do you think he learned it from?”

~*~

Somewhere along the line (but of course, Misha is only realizing it now) he stopped pretending to be comfortable and just…was.

It’s almost enough to make him uncomfortable again.

He’d come into this meeting with a fallback conversation, but two and a half hours later it’s still nestled comfortingly in the background of his mind. Misha’s stomach is starting to growl, and the chairs aren’t the most comfortable in the world; he’s literally opening his mouth to suggest—and he can’t believe he’s doing this—dinner at a restaurant down the block when Mike’s wig falls off his chair.

“Oh f—” Rosenbaum is on his feet (sorta) tripping over his sketchers to pick it up, fumbling with his back pocket for his cell. “Damn it, I am so late. I was gonna meet up with Tommy, what—half hour ago? Shit. Hey, man!” he says into his phone, sending Misha an apologetic smile. "We still on? Hell yeah. Hold on one sec.”

Misha’s a little surprised when Mike catches his sleeve when he goes to stand, and he knows it’s written in big block letters all over his face when Mike smiles. "Do you eat?”

Misha blinks. “Don’t most people?”

The smile widens. “I meant, do you want to eat with me?”

"Uh.” Yeah, yeah he does. “Um, Tom?”

“No, yeah, I’ve got to run do this tonight, but I meant—Tomorrow? Do you work tomorrow?”

“I do,” Misha admits through the giant explosion of butterflies in his stomach, “But not during dinner time.”

The disappointment creeping in on Mike’s expression vanishes in a grin so wide Misha feels like he’s staggered with it, though he hopes he just swayed a little. Imperceptibly.

He calls Jared the instant he’s out of Bean Here Before, stalking down the street like he’s got a trench coat and tie on instead of his stupid suit jacket. He informs Jared via voicemail that he’s a bad friend, and then hangs up. Jensen doesn’t answer either, so Misha says, "That goes double for you. I knew you first.” First by two minutes, but Misha figures this is one of those times where it counts. Like which twin was born first. ( _“The one with the bigger cock!”_ Thanks, _Boondock Saints_ deleted scenes, for ruining his entire life _._ )

So then he calls Vicky and tells her answering machine, “I made a friend, mom!” just because he can. Because he feels like he _did._

Then he buys too much takeout for one person and a case of beer and goes home.

~*~

Misha almost doesn’t open it. Because honestly. How did this not get caught by his spam filter?

 

 _To: madmishmash@aol.com_   
_From: boobsr4boys711@gci.net_   
_Subj: I do believe you have something you need to tell me_

 __

 _a)_ _MISHA IS A MILKAHOLIC!_   
_b)_ _MISHA HAS A DRINKING PROBLEM! (bet you thought I never watched sophisticated movies.)_   
_c)_ _MISHA IS IN FACT LACTOSE INTOLERANT!_

 _Fess up, milk boy, before I make you run for political office in San Diego._

 _P.S. Your email address is really lame._

 

He’s on set. He has important on-set things he needs to pay attention to. Gaping at his email is not one of them.

Neither is replying. Random texting is one thing, email is just— Email feels more permanent, which is ridiculous. It’s not a hand written letter delivered by carrier pigeon.

 

 _To: boobsr4boys711@gci.net_   
_From: madmishmash@aol.com_   
_Re: That’s Mr. Milkboy to you_

 _d)_ _failed career as milk man. Are you trying to woo me with your “sophisticated”_ Airplanes _reference? Because I must say, points._

 _However, points deducted for failed_ Milk _reference—Harvey Milk was elected in San Francisco (so sayeth google), and as someone who has no real inclination to ever watch this movie, SHAME THE FUCK BACK._

 _P.S. ~.^_ MY _email address?_   
_P.P.S. The general consensus of the internet is that it’s actually yogurt._  
 _P.P.P.S. How do you keep getting these methods of contact that I don’t give you?_

 

Misha misses his mark a couple times because he’s too busy internally cringing at typing the word ‘woo.’ The boys—who haven’t been given an opportunity to question him about his hostile voicemail abuse—give him a couple weird looks, but mostly they’ve got their game faces on. Jensen in particular is rocking Dean’s zombie-roughed-up hobble around the set, and Jared’s playing protective-little-brother like he’s gearing up to shout booyah and tell someone to eat their heart out. Misha feels particularly amateurish today.

Seriously, ‘woo.’ Woo. It doesn’t ever get better in his head, no matter how many times he tells himself that Jared has said much worse to his guy friends and come out on top. Not like that. _Woo_.

He still has an email waiting for him when they take five.

 

 _To: madmishmash@aol.com_   
_From: boobsr4boys711@gci.net_   
_Re: Re: maybe I’m just a milkaholic_

 _While still reeling from your unashamed use of the f-bomb—seriously, weren’t you a monk in Nepal once?—I am somehow managing to scrounge enough brain cells to smirk at your little emoticon. How elementary. And yet, so elegant. Who knew three little infantile symbols could say so much?_

 _P.S. XPPPPPP_   
_P.P.S. I'm so glad the internet has an opinion on what type of dairy products you pour on your person. When is the next poll?_   
_P.P.P.S. Starts with Pada, ends with Lecki. He read a fic about us, once._

 

 _To: boobsr4boys711@gci.net_  
 _From: madmishmash@aol.com_   
_Re: Re: Re: maybe I’m just a milkaholic_

 _…Did it have to do with Sweden?_

 

Misha breathes out his nerves and sits back in his chair, fiddling with the end of his trench coat belt in the place where he’s worn it thin. This email thing—if you can call four emails a ‘thing’—is in no way a good idea. Flirting. Or not really. Because it’s Michael Rosenbaum, and everything up until last week prepared him for Michael Rosenbaum to be…more Rosenbaumy and, let’s face it, way less normal.

He could google him. He’s an awesome googler. He could know everything the universe of fangirls knows at the touch of an iphone. He could do it, and he could lie and say it wouldn’t feel like cheating.

Jared gives him a scolding, "Misha…" as he plops into the chair next to him, shooting a pointed glance at the seam Misha’s slowly but surely destroying with his fingernails.

"How has Castiel not lost this already?” He keeps picking at the belt, refusing—eh, more like declining—to make eye contact. "I mean, I know that Jamie sewed it on the belt loops, but I also know in my wardrobe trench coat belts are always the first—“

“Misha.” Jared’s cell is suddenly and directly in his face. “My phone is an awesome friend. How dare you?”

Misha wants to say, "It answers more than you do," but that’s not fair and he doesn’t even mind, really. He’s not as cripplingly codependent like some people he could name. He just gets (it’s Vicky’s voice in his head) lonely sometimes.

So he sticks his tongue out instead.

Jared seems to consider this for a moment, like it was an actual answer. Then, “You hurt my phone’s feelings. I think it sent your email to Rosenbaum in retaliation.”

Misha peers around the Samsung Razr Crazr Whateverthingy to level him with a glare. “When we become best friends, you will have no one to blame but yourself.”

~*~

He thinks that since deciding to be friends with Michael Rosenbaum was so (relatively) easy, that actually accomplishing that feat will suddenly turn out to be really hard. Logically.

“Hey!” Mike’s face actually _lights up_ when Misha comes into the restaurant, waving him over before the hostess can ask if he has a reservation (and it is That Kind of restaurant). Misha feels some of the tension ease out of his shoulders with the realization that he’s smiling back, less than zero effort.

"Nice place,” he says when he gets to Mike’s table. And it is, all classy linen tablecloths and candles and flowers at every table, low lighting but not too low, and Misha can definitely get behind some of the dishes he walked past on his way through. Just as long as he doesn’t let himself stare too much at Michael Rosenbaum in dress slacks, he’s going to be fine.

"Yeah, I can—” Mike pauses to put on a show of coughing and straitening his tie, "I can class it up, too, Mr. Collins.”

Misha makes a noise and pulls a face as he sits down. “Don’t do that. You want me to call you Rosey?”

Mike shrugs, still grinning. “People do. I forgot to ask if you were a v—vegan,” he adds with a half laugh, running a hand through his short, soft-looking hair. “Or had any other dietary restrictions.”

“Is this because—" Misha lets out an overly put upon sigh. “I swear, you tell one room full of fangirls that you like yoga, and suddenly you’re a strict Buddhist wheat-germ-munching hippy.”

“That has always been my experience.” Mike’s eyes are laughing at him. “I heard Gandhi was in here last week, so there’s probably wheat germ on the menu.”

“If Gandhi was in here last week, he’d have been on the show,” Misha mutters loftily, making a point to look at the steak side of the menu.

“Hey,” Mike says while straightening the napkin on his lap, just as Misha’s wrapping up the story of how he’d lied to the Nip/Tuck producers about his level of flexibility in order to get the part (he couldn’t actually _walk_ the next day, it was that bad, and he’d barely managed mobility for the next nine days), “I know we just said dinner—" Okay, maybe the lighting in here is a little too low, because from this angle he looks just a little too casual. “—but there’s this movie playing later I’d be interested in watching not by myself, if you wanted to be a hopeless loser and tag along.”

Misha’s going to pull something smiling, and then he’ll get fired. Or Castiel will have to be re-written as the Joker. “What movie?”

“ _Taken._ ”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah,” Mike laughs, so big for a second he has to tip his head back. “Taken Seriously.”

Over an hour later Misha sets his fork down and wonders what the hell just happened. In a good way. He hasn’t talked this much one on one with someone, hasn’t clicked this hard with anyone, since he first tripped over Victoria’s notebook in third period English. He feels…almost drunk on it. Or high. He’s still a little bit worried when they’re parking at the theater that he’s going to turn to Mike and go, "Hey, man…I love you, man…" but then Mike absently latches onto his sleeve as they run to get in line before a mass of giggling teenagers, and his brain shuts up.

“Why did Liam Neeson tell her to go into the other room?” Misha whispers a little later, leaning closer to Mike until their shoulders touch because he can’t help being chatty in a theater but he can keep it down for other people. “Seriously, if he knew she was going to get taken, shouldn’t he have picked a different one?”

“Dude,” Mike says in all mock seriousness, “Liam Neeson’s, like, Chuck Norris. The Irish Chuck Norris. Of Fight Club. You do not question Liam Neeson.” Mike pops a couple Mike & Ikes which makes Misha’s nose wrinkle—liquorish—and adds, "Besides, then we would have no movie. Oh, come on, now, this is Surviving a Drama 101. If you’re warned not to do something in the first five minutes, don’t do it.”

“Shh,” Misha chuckles around the popcorn pressed to his lips as they watch Liam’s movie-daughter flail some more. He’s too full and hyped up on cookie dough bites and being so close to Mike to feel tense about it, which is awesome. “Yeah, it’s pretty much up there with telling someone how you want to be buried.” He thinks about the last late-night movie hero he saw with that problem and snorts. “Stupid Horatio.”

“Poor Ioan Gruffud," Mike laughs, quietly but still real, "He’s never gonna live Hornblower down.”

Misha takes a long sip from his double gulp cola and asks, “How did that just make sense to you?”

"I think you and I were separated at birth,” Mike drawls, letting his head loll sideways on the back of his seat so Misha can see the theater lights ripple across his smile. “Honestly.”

Misha carefully raises his eyebrows, popcorn salt kicking in to make his throat dry. “Where have you been all my life?”

For a second it’s too dark to see anything, and Mike is right there, warm and solid against Misha’s side and it’s really nice, feels really good, and Misha knows he’s going to say something because his mouth is opening up.

“Okay, now—" There’s a flash of canned light and Mike is looking at the screen, laugh lines around his eyes. “How does Liam Neeson know there’s anyone on the other line? He could totally be talking to himself right now.”

"Now who’s questioning Liam Neeson?” Misha pops a couple more cookie dough bites in his mouth. “I’m waiting for the voice to tell him he’s running low on minutes.”

They’d taken Mike’s little silver car on the way over, cluttered with 80s CDs and guitar strings still in their packets—turns out Mike plays, and that’s entirely unfair—and when Mike drops him back off at the restaurant so Misha can drive home, it feels like peeling a layer of skin off getting out of the car.

“I had a _great_ time tonight,” Misha purrs, playing it up so Mike doesn’t realize how much it’s true. He even bats his eyelashes and tilts his head angelically (though not Castiel-esque, unless Castiel has some hidden crossdressing tendencies he doesn’t know about). “We should totally do this again some time!”

Mike coughs a little on an exaggeratedly deep laugh. “I’ve got your number, l’il lady,” he drawls with a curled smirk and a pistol finger, and Misha does his best not to snort or melt into a puddle.

But if there’s a skip in his step as Misha walks away, Mike probably writes it off as staying in character.

~*~

 _< Dude r u dead?>_

Fourth text in two days and the first one Misha’s had time to respond to. His thumbs peck out, < _Not dead just busy. How a— >_ and then their guest director starts snapping that they need him on set, so Misha has to delete the last part and send.

Ten minutes later, in the middle of a scene, Misha completely flubs a line when he realizes how much of a brush off that sounded like.

Misha sucks. Like a hoover, actually, but not many know that.

Shooting after the night they saw _Taken_ had hit the cast like a steamroller, some scheduling fuck up suddenly demanding that they cram six days of filming into three, and Misha wishes that meant he didn’t have time to miss Mike. Or you know, not Mike specifically, but hanging out with him.

Okay so he misses Mike. Misha’s a horrible person, neglectful of his friends, and he probably has Alzheimer’s or some other incurable mental disease so even though he doesn’t get home until midnight the third day he props himself up at his computer desk and blearily double clicks the email logo, ready to lay it all out in something that hopefully sounds better than, “I had a really great time last…well, a while ago, and then I never called.”

Because that sounds like a bad date. He’s never wanted to be Mike’s bad date.

It was seriously the best time he’s had at a theater in…way too long, considering his profession, but he really doesn’t do well with big graphic violence or jump-scares. Mike didn’t even give him shit about the times Misha had to squeeze his eyes shut, though honestly it could be because he hadn’t noticed. Still. Something about the way Mike leaned into him until the bad parts passed makes him think it wasn’t that.

There’s a new message from boobsr4boyz711. Misha’s so caught up in staring at the time stamp—after Misha had replied to his text—that he doesn’t pay attention to his stupid finger slipping on the mouse as it clicks it.

 

 _To: madmishmash@aol.com_   
_From: boobsr4boys711@gci.net_   
_Subj: (no subject)_

 

 _[This is what happens when you leave me alone.](http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/a47667baaa/taken-seriously) _

 

He’s not actually aware that he’s dialing Mike’s number until he hears his semi-sleep rough voice in his ear. “Hello?”

And then all he can do is laugh.

“Mmm,” Mike hums, low and amused, and it makes something funny turn over in Misha’s gut but it also makes him fall off the chair. “Got my email?”

“Shut up,” Misha chokes out, slightly winded and possibly tangled in his computer chords, “I’ll kill you.”

“Hey, as long as you stop ignoring me I am a-okay with that.”

Mike’s smiling and Misha knows he is, but it’s suddenly a lot easier to stop laughing. He groans and drags a hand over his face, mumbling, “I wish I had stubble; then I’d look as grungy as I feel.”

Mike’s turn to laugh, and Misha feels even more punch-drunk listening to it. “Those pesky makeup girls keep shaving it off, huh?”

“Bet you wished you had head stubble some…” Misha’s lips might finish that, maybe not. His eyes are still wide open, but more like they can’t actually be bothered to close than because he’s awake. Then he remembers Mike’s sort-of question and adds, “Mmyeah.”

"…sha… _Misha_!”

“What?” Misha blurts, startled and kind of worried until Mike’s chuckle rumbles down the line.

“C’mon, man,” he coaxes, “Hang up on me before you crash or you’re gonna have one bitch of a phone bill tomorrow.”

“Muh?” Misha forces his head above his shoulders to survey the surrounding territory. “The bed’s too far.”

“You don’t actually need a bed to hang up on me.”

“I don’t want to hang up on you,” Misha says, taking time with each word because Mike seems particularly stupid tonight. “That would be mean.”

“Are you on the floor?” Mike asks like it’s an affront to humanity.

Misha continues flopping around until he’s on his belly to answer. “Maybe.”

“Dude.” Then when Misha makes an unhappy noise he says, "Misha," like he _knows_ that the next words out of his mouth were going to be protest against all the ‘mans’ and ‘dudes.’ Then Mike sighs. “They’ve been working you pretty hard, huh?”

Misha’s breath comes out a little shaky as he nods, then gets distracted by how unhelpful and kind of pathetic that is. “I can take it,” he grunts out, forcing his limbs to lift him to his hands and knees. Hand and knees, because he’s still holding the cell to his ear.

“Aw, I know you can, baby,” the Shirley Temple voice coos, “Now get on your feet and strip.”

Misha makes enough sound effects with his facial expression to get Mike’s manly laugh back, but he also obeys (not that Mike has to know). He’s so busy paying attention to pulling his shirt off his head without dislodging the phone that he forgets to put a sensor on his mouth.

“So who was that guy in the skit with you?”

“Paul,” Mike answers easily enough. If he was in sight his eyes would be laughing at him. “Why? Want me to set you up?”

“Beard doesn’t do it for me.” Again, very little brain to mouth ratio going on as he crawls onto the bed. Then, before he can figure out if there was a pause, “What about that dog you were playing with?”

“Okay, man, I am not setting you up with my dog,” Mike laughs, real and bright.

"Your dog?” Misha can feel his smile go warm and fuzzy, if that physically possible, and then he smothers it with a pillow. He loves Sadie and Harley, actually found himself missing Icarus once Danneel split (probably more than Danneel, which is kind of sad but also not surprising) and he’s always, always wanted a dog of his own. Victoria’s just…it wouldn’t be right. “Tell me about it? Or him. Her?”

“When you’re awake, sometime,” Mike promises, smile coloring his words. Then, in a slightly different tone, “You in bed yet, Misha?”

“Yup.”

Something about that strikes Mike as funny too, but before Misha can ask he says, “Okay, now. Ball’s in your court.” And hangs up.

Well, it’s no fun listening to a dial tone so he hangs up too.

~*~

He wakes up thinking about balls. Not the good kind, though his are hanging nice and heavy thanks to some really weird dreams no doubt brought on by Mike bouncing around in that bra (they involved…volleyball. And animal crackers in his soup). No, he’s thinking about the kind of balls you find it courts, and how Mike was maybe letting him know that if he still wants to hang out, it’s his turn to figure out what to do.

Misha has no clue. And he’s got a whole day of nothing to do it in.

“You’re the one with all the time off,” he says around his cereal when Mike picks up, before he can say hello.

“Good morning, starshine.” Mike sounds like he’s stretching, and for a moment Misha has a crystalline image in his head of how that looks, Mike’s chin tucked close to his chest and a light blue shirt riding up his belly. “I’m sure that made sense in your head.”

Misha inexplicably blushes. Maybe not so inexplicably. “I just. I don’t know what to do in Canada.”

Mike pauses, no mistake, tone carefully teasing when he answers. “What would you like to do in Canada?”

Misha takes a minute to swallow a mushy spoonful of maple and brown sugar flavored oatmeal to give himself time to reconsider this possibly very bad idea. “I’d like to meet your dog?”

He has to wait a breath to get an answer, but Mike sounds like he might be smiling through his Liam Neeson voice when he gives it. “Dog park on birch street, one hour.”

~*~

“Dressing down for us mortals, Collins?”

Misha hears Mike before he sees him, so he can’t help the smile that breaks across his face when he turns from all the other people who are not Mike with their dogs. It’s such a perfect fucking day, just cold enough to be called crisp, and Misha always feels like he’s six years old when Autumn’s creeping in. He wants to run around collecting maple leaves and get Elmer’s glue on his hands.

Instead he takes two bounding steps towards Mike before his brain registers what Mike said and the way his smile, for the first time, isn’t reaching his eyes—and he has one more moment to shoot a confused glance down at his grungiest jeans and tan/red/blue striped thrift store sweater and compare it to Mike’s well-worn college hoodie for Western Kentucky U and a brown knit _owl hat_ with ear flaps complete with yarn ornaments—and then Mike throws a Frisbee at his head. 

Which wouldn’t be so bad if there wasn’t a dog attached to it. 

“Hoshit!” is the word shoved out of his lungs as the canine literally knocks him on his ass, instantly forgetting the Frisbee in favor of prancing all over its victim’s spleen while it inspects him with its face. 

Misha laughs, trapping the dog’s head between his hands to give it a thorough ear-scratch that makes its whole body wag. The dog—it’s a boy, Misha notes with a cursory check—uses that wriggling momentum to land in Misha’s lap, and while he’s not as big as Harley, it’s still a feat. He’s got German Shepherd in him—maybe, he’s almost got the face for it—and Rottweiler coloring under his thick blue collar. Crooning to him, Misha flicks the bone-shaped tag over with his thumb just as Mike strolls to a stop.

“Irv?” Misha’s mouth takes its time saying it; it’s that kind of name. Then he turns his face up, squinting a little at the sun peeking out behind Mike’s head.

“My grandpa’s name.” Mike shrugs like Misha can’t see how his smile’s still a little stiff, but a lot more real than when he first showed up. Mike scratches at the back of his neck and the smile goes crooked. “I dunno, he just looked like an Irv.”

Misha can feel his heart growing bigger, and that shouldn’t be anatomically possible. He also shouldn’t feel like he’s just been allowed to meet the kid of his single-dad boyfriend (which Mike definitely isn’t). 

“C’mere,” Mike growls in that voice everyone uses when speaking to dogs and sweeps Irv up in his arms. The dog is so delighted he almost wags himself out of Mike’s grasp, licking all along his chin and face. Mike takes it like a man, scrunching his eyes closed and his mouth out of the way and if Misha was on his feet Mike would never see a kiss coming.

“Y’all are too cute,” Misha says without meaning too, proving once and for all that he’s spent too much time in the company of the Js as he leans back on his elbows. Mike’s owl hat is ridiculous, and stupidly endearing even without the big puppy in his arms. “How long have you been together?”

It could be his imagination, but Misha thinks Mike’s quirked smile approves of the phrasing. “Six months.” Mike drops his face to wipe the slobber off on Irv’s head, much to Irv’s delight. “He’s my good boy.”

Mike looks slightly mortified, which is hilarious considering the lingerie he’s been filmed wearing. Misha knows he should give him shit or attempt to control the helpless grin on his own face, but it’s a lot easier to stay where he is and beam.

When Mike drops Irv he bounces like a rubber ball and lands almost on top of Misha, nosing at him until Misha realizes he’s sitting on the Frisbee. His throw is kind of pathetic, but Mike gives him a hand up with something like gratitude in his expression, so it’s okay.

 _Something like—_ it is grateful, yes, but also relieved and…wary. A little closed off. Misha doesn’t know what to do with that.

"I’m sorry,” he says. Not in any way sure if that’s the right response, but meaning it anyway. Mike’s blue eyes meet his with a strange mixture of confusion and hope and surprise. Misha takes a breath while he still can. “How many years in unemployed time did I ignore you?”

Mike snorts (almost), ducking down to wrestle the yellow plastic disc from Irv. “Misha, man, I understand how it is. You don’t—“

“I’m really bad at having friends.” Misha looks down at his hands, his beat up shoes, his ugly sweater. “Or, um, keeping them. Making them. I don’t—“

“I’ve seen you in a room full of rabid fans _eating_ out of your hand.” It takes every muscle in his neck not to look up. Irv’s tugging on the Frisbee but Mike doesn’t notice until he tears his eyes away from the holes he’s staring in Misha’s skull. “No, wait—fuck, I know that’s different. Look, I didn’t mean to make you think—“

“Can I buy you lunch? To make up for it?” Misha feels his smile go a little lopsided, chill definitely a contributing factor in turning his cheeks pink, and if Irv lets go of the Frisbee they’ll look really stupid, one dog toy away from holding hands. “Then I can grill you about the time you apparently stalked me in a room full of fans.”

“Youtube, you giant freak,” Mike objects, “And it wasn’t my fault.”

But he won’t say whose fault it is and his cheekbones are pinker than Misha’s, so he figures it has something to do with a man by the name of Shmensen or Schmared or Schmom Schmelling, and lets it go.

~*~

Irv’s tied up outside, only half-way to worn out, and they make it all of six steps into the hole-in-the-wall grocery store before Mike catches Misha by the elbow and stumbles him back one. “Dude?” he says, making a question out of it as he scans faded Bollywood posters tacked between water stains on the ceiling, “Unless there’s some sort of insanely secret gourmet restaurant in the back—“

“This is just a pit stop for ingredients,” Misha promises with an overly consoling pat on Mike’s arm which he hopes conveys, _You big baby,_ but also _I wouldn’t take you to a place out of sight of your dog._ Then he starts sifting through the milk crates full of vegetables. “Are you a broccoli fan or a zucchini guy? Because in my experience you can only be one.”

“If I say zucchini,” Mike answers, haltingly, “will you take it as an innuendo and not make me eat it?”

“Broccoli it is,” Misha nods, smirking, does not take a second envious glance at the squash, and makes to grab a head of the preferred vegetable when Mike stops him again.

“You don’t have to _cook_ for me,” he blurts with the same inflection Sam might use to tell Dean, _You don’t have to_ die _for me._ Misha starts to snort but Mike just shakes him by the arm. “Seriously. I was not that heartbroken.”

His eyes are wide and blue and Misha knows he’s in trouble before his mouth even opens. “Mike, you showed me your dog,” he says like that means something, because it does, it was weeks before Jared introduced him to his kids and months before he screwed up the courage to ask Misha to dogsit, and he hears himself saying, “Let me show you my place. Let me make you lunch.” He blinks, a sudden rush of horror that maybe this is too much, this is _not what you do_. “Unless—sorry, we don’t have to, there’s this Indian place down the block and—sometimes I forget, you know, hanging with Jared and Jensen—“

(—who are all over each other, all the time, and it’s hard to remember things like personal boundaries—)

“Misha, Misha.” Mike stresses everything just right with a squeeze of Misha’s forearm that he feels down to his bones. “It’s okay. I promise. Don’t freak out, I want— Just. Don’t go to too much trouble, okay?”

Mike must see something in Misha’s tentative smile because the next thing he knows he’s being swept up and pleasantly crushed in a hug. His brain stalls out and dies for a moment. A freaking _hug._ It should be humiliating or emasculating or something not nearly as good as it is. Misha (stupidly) finds himself thinking about Jackson, and how he wouldn’t even hold hands when they were alone.

“You really are bad at this friends thing,” Mike says like it’s a revelation, but just a little too awed to be taken seriously, especially with his chin resting on Misha’s shoulder. One of the fuzzy yarn tufts dangling from the owl hat earflaps is caught in the collar of Misha’s thrift sweater, pressed into the hollow of his throat.

Misha doesn’t think about the things he doesn’t think about on a fairly regular basis and lets out a sigh, watching his breath flutter the hairs at the nape of Mike’s neck. “You have no idea.”

When Mike pulls back he’s got his first genuine smile stretching from ear to ear, so big it’s crinkling his eyes at the corners and wrinkling his nose and it looks ridiculous, and Misha wants very badly for it to be the first thing he sees when he turns on his iphone in the morning. But all Mike says is, “Will you wear an apron?” and Misha has to defend his honor by jabbing him in the kidneys with a zucchini.

~*~

Fuck.

It.

Misha. Is never. Moving. Again.

Pot pie from scratch does that to him. Cold beer on a full belly on a day off does that to him. A warm dog stretched across his feet does that to him. Listening to Mike make happy foodgasm noises makes him stupidly grateful for the first three reasons rendering him immobile.

“Oh god. I’m in love with this crust.”

Misha makes his mouth grin and tries not to feel too jealous of his pastry. “Then I won’t tell you what’s in it.”

“I’m serious. I want to make sweet love to this crust and ask it to have my babies and then—put a ring on it.”

Misha acquiesces to Mike’s offered fist bump with a straight-faced, “If you liked it then you shoulda,” but he doesn’t look away from the screen because he’s not stupid. And also, he is that good.

Their lower centers of gravity have landed them on the couch, a castoff of Jensen’s that was just sitting in storage after he moved in with Jared, but which is still Jared-sized because that’s why Jensen bought it. They’re also perilously close to playing the most brutal game of Mario Kart since the great hiatus play-off of 2008, where Chad Michael Murray left with both thumbs in a sling made out of tube socks, and Michael Fucking Rosenbaum is trying to distract him into losing.

“Seriously—“

“One more word about my crust and I’ll tell you about the lard.”

“What?” Mario swerves. Misha grins.

They battle in silence for all of two seconds before Mike low voice starts up again. “I'm a gentleman. Chivalry is what I do.” Each word is calculated and deliberate, like he’s talking around biting his tongue—which Misha is not in the least bit tempted to check on—“I'll open the door, pull out your chair, buy your drinks, I'll even go down first, but when it comes to Mario Kart? I draw the line. I'm sorry but I just. Can't. Let you. Beat me at Mario—“

Misha knew he was fucked somewhere around—well, it’s not too hard to guess. His controller hits his traitorous fluttering stomach as Mike’s Mario skids across the finish line. Did he seriously just lose at Mario Kart for the mere thought of a blow job? Leaden despair is settling in his shoulders, and Mike’s hands fly over his head with a war whoop that makes his ears ring.

Which almost drowns out the sound of a knock at the door. Irv leaps off their feet and Misha—suddenly motivated—still manages to beat him there. He’s not really thinking about who the hell would be behind it at three o’clock on a Thursday, but then again.

“Jared?” He has a legitimate reason to ask, because the 6’4" giant on his doorstep with his shoulders hunched and his arms at his sides like they’re too heavy for his pockets—this heartsick person couldn’t look less like Jared Padalecki if he tried.

“Hey, yeah.” That’s Jared’s voice, though, even rough and small, and Misha hauls him inside before he falls over, "Fuck, what happened?” tumbling out of is mouth before he can help it.

“Um, nothing,” Jared lies, and then comes up short when Irv sticks his nose in Jared’s crotch and Mike vaults over the end of the couch, almost within the same moment. “Irv,” Jared says, ten million kinds of surprised, and then, “Rosey.”

And then he bursts into fucking tears.

“Oh shit,” Misha says instantly, stunned and torn open and worried, fists a hand in Jared’s jacket and asks, “Harley and Sadie?” because he’s seen _Heart._

“Oh Jesus Christ,” Jared curses with a brutal, self-deprecating laugh, pawing at the dampness on his face. “No, man, they’re fine. I’m so sorry—I’m a fucking mess—“

“Okay,” Mike says with a lot more certainty, taking another step forward but not reaching for him. “What happened with Jensen?”

 _That will seem like a weird question later_ , Misha thinks, ‘ _with’ instead of ‘to,’_ but right now it looks like it’s the right one. Jared reacts like it’s a kick in the gut, moves away from Mike like he must have suspected he would, and then just stares at him for a long time. Misha keeps his grip on Jared’s coat and waits. He’s not one of those people who needs to know every last thing that’s going on; he’s happy to be left out of the loop until someone decides to fill him in.

“He broke up with me.”

Which is probably why he didn’t see that coming.

~*~

“Fucking _fanfiction_ ,” Jared hisses for the 153-and-a-half-th time (Misha’s keeping score on the back of his TV guide) and looks like he might start crying again (for the 11-and-three-fourths time, according to How I Met Your Mother) which will prompt the God Fuck My Tequila Don’t Need No Salt conversation. Again.

“Shit, Jared,” Mike announces, head rolling back and forth, “If you’d just tell us—“

“Shots,” Jared snaps, gaze murderous, and Mike drags himself onto one elbow with a sigh. They’re too full for the alcohol to do much yet, but Misha can feel them getting there. Especially with Jared egging them on.

“I wish I was like fanfiction,” Misha hums, “because then I would have pot.”

“I would have better pot,” Mike points out from his precarious upsidedownways position on the couch. His eyes look even bluer from this angle, and Misha has a bad feeling that he’s going to try crawling over there for a closer look at some point. “And awesome drugs.”

“I would have Jensen,” Jared mumbles, the maudlin bastard, and drags them all down again.

“Alright, that’s it.” Misha feels like his skin is burning with how suddenly and completely _pissed off_ he is, because apparently it takes four hours of Jared not saying a word and two large pizzas and inordinate amounts of booze that does very little besides damage their Mario Kart scores for him to realize, “You should’ve _told_ me.”

He’s also suddenly and somehow straddling Jared’s thighs, which, okay, whatever, he gets to poke him at a better angle. Jared looks even more devastated, which is in no way fair. Misha pokes him again, hard. And then once more. “I know I’m the fucking baby,” he snaps, and he’s not sure if Mike’s ever heard him cuss and mean it but that side of the couch is dead silent. “But you should’ve. Jared. You—“

“No one knew,” Jared chokes out.

Misha makes a disbelieving, distressed noise and—“Mike knew.”

“Mike guessed,” Mike corrects, squirming down to fill up Misha’s space on the couch with his upper body. The top of his head nudges Misha’s thigh, almost like Irv would if he weren’t sacked out by the tower of DVDs. It’s sort of _hey there_ and kind of _it’s okay,_ and Misha feels calmer despite himself. “Mike thinks you should tell us what happened before Mike gets too drunk to beat the sense into my man Ackles.”

That’s a weird sort of reminder that Mike knew Jensen first, before Jared. Misha wonders if it’s one of those twin-times that counts.

Jared lets out a breath like it was the only thing keeping his shape, and Misha moves off a little quickly just in case that’s…the case. He winds up on the opposite side of Jared from where he started, his legs sprawled over Jared’s knees and Mike’s head between his ankles. He tucks his feet under Mike’s shoulders apologetically in case they smell (he doesn’t know, he doesn’t usually smell his feet on purpose) and thinks that this is probably the most guy touching ever recorded in one day. He’s kind of more buzzed on that than the alcohol.

“So we maybe. We maybe started reading fanfiction about each other,” Jared starts, like it hurts, “A while ago. And. It was okay, it was good, we were just…we were fine but suddenly we weren’t and then—than we were again and he kissed me.” Jared’s eyes shut tight and his whole chest shudders, head tipped back exactly like Misha had tipped his head back the night he met Mike, swallowing tears instead of blood. Morbid but true. “He kissed me and then he said—basically he said he wasn’t that kind of girl, so I. I tried to make him see that I didn’t care, I didn’t just want that, I wanted all of him, I _want_ all of him, everything he’ll give me and then. Fuck.”

“You fucked, or just fuck in general?” Mike asks, but he’s got one hand wrapped around Misha’s ankle and his face is far too nice to kick.

“Yes. Yeah. Both,” Jared gets out brokenly, then sinks his head down until it thumps against Misha’s shoulder. “I didn’t notice at first because we were so fucking busy this week, but he stopped—normal stuff, like waiting to eat with me or whatever, just hanging, and I thought Dean was just getting to him but I come home—“ He hiccups on a sound like a sob, and Misha threads his hand through Jared’s hair, holds on. “Come home,” Jared finishes mostly to the collar of Misha’s shirt, “and try to give him a kiss, just a kiss, quick kiss, and Jensen _flips shit_ , starts tearing into me about how he’s not some fictional persona I made up in my head and I’m _projecting_. Like I don’t fucking know the difference between what some fan made up and the real—“

Jared grinds his face into Misha’s shoulder. It hurts. Misha takes one for the team, realizing a little belatedly that he’s been listening this whole time with his gaze fixed on Mike.

“He sounds scared,” Mike says, staring right back. Even upside down it’s too intense. Misha makes his gaze drop and swallows something horrible.

“I fucking know,” Jared agrees miserably, “I just don’t know what to _do_.”

“We can keep cuddling some more,” Misha offers after what has to be the longest silence since the one he got trying to come out to his parents. He feels almost stone cold sober now, so there’s no real excuse to planting an exaggerated kiss on the top of Jared’s head except as a blatant attempt to make him smile. “If that’s not too gay.” And because he’s stupid, he slants half a glance toward Mike.

Mike, who is suddenly sitting up with a grin that looks well meant if not entirely genuine. “We have spent entirely too much time talking about our feelings,” is what he announces as he trips to his feet, shifting Irv to one side with his sock-rumpled toes. He looks…broad and strong and good, and Misha shouldn’t be cataloguing the curve of his spine where his t-shirt’s still sticking with Jared falling apart right next to him, but he can’t help it. He’s horrible.

“Bourne Identity?”

Jared shudders and Misha blurts, “I don’t have it,” as fast as he can. “Um,” he adds in the face of Mike’s exaggerated disbelief (he hopes), “But we can watch the episode of NCIS where I car-nap some chick.”

“Narcissistic much?” is what Mike says, but his whole face is lit up and even Jared’s lifting his head, blinking a little blearily at him.

“I…didn’t know you were on NCIS,” he croaks finally.

“And I survived,” Misha nods sagely, “with only a minor man-crush on Mark Harmon. Thank you for recognizing that feat.”

Mike laughs and makes a show of licking his lips, moaning, “Silver _fox_ ,” with a decidedly feminine lisp as he clutches the season two box to his chest. Misha groans, thumps his head against Jared’s, happy he can hide at least half his beet red face.

“First, disentangle yourselves, ladies,” Mike decrees, tossing the box at Misha, cutting him off when he starts to point out _wrong season_ , with, “And we’re starting with the NCIS drinking game. Season finale,” he prompts when they just stare. “C’mon, every time someone almost dies you take a shot. Chop chop, Collins, move that pretty arse.”

Ignoring the very teenaged-girl desire to check himself out and squeal, “You really think so?” Misha scowls a little and tries to get enough leverage to obey. His shirt ends up over his bellybutton in the process, one hand on the floor and the other clutching the DVDs and rucking the cloth back down so by the time he manages to grumble, “You’re already up,” Mike’s half way to the kitchen, Irv following haplessly behind.

“Gotta take a leak,” is what he tosses over his shoulder, but Misha would have to be a lot drunker than he is to not be able to translate that to _Gonna call Jensen._

He manages to keep Jared distracted, he hopes, by flailing around a lot more than he needs to on his quest for verticality. And then Jared distracts them both by downing two more tequila shots in rapid succession, and asking Misha around his wedge of lemon, “So. Sweden.”

“Poland,” Misha tries, ignoring the flip flop in his stomach in favor of juggling the slippery disk covers. “Belgium. Uzbekistan. Bosnia.”

“Sweden,” Jared says again, no inflection to it, and when Misha makes the mistake of making eye contact his gaze is steady, non-judgmental, fighting to be curious. Mostly exhausted, worn down to the bone. Misha knows about being so raw that you’ll talk about anything else, so he ducks his head and answers.

“Um. No. Not. No.”

“He let you meet Irv,” Jared points out, voice muted but impressed. Then, a little bit more as it sinks in, “I don’t think Tom’s even met Irv.”

Misha pulls a face because that’s. So very stupidly unlikely. But it’s not nice to call brokenhearted people names, and even less of a good thing to do when they’re making shit up to make _you_ feel better. “Yeah, okay.”

“No ‘m serious. ‘M serious, Misha.”

“You’re gonna lose the drinking game before we start,” Misha warns, snagging the tequila for himself with a bizarre little dance. It burns a little less than before going down, and he probably shouldn’t be surprised at the number of tries it takes before he gets the disk into the player.

“I think you’d be good together,” Jared announces, and Misha nearly kills himself on the coffee table trying to get to him fast enough, make him shut _up,_ “And that’s not some stupid fan fiction saying it, it’s _me—“_

“Jared,” Misha says when the hand shoved over Jared’s mouth earns him a wounded look but blessed silence, too, “please, please, please, don’t.”

Jared makes a sound that’s as distinguishable for _Why not?_ as the way everyone uses the same inflection for _I don’t know._

 _Because I’m scared too,_ is the answer, and Misha thinks Jared sees that in his expression. _I’m terrified._

He doesn’t really know of what, and Irv bounds into the room before he can figure it out. He keeps one knee solid against Jared’s as he sinks into the couch, doesn’t realize until after that the giant has purposefully migrated to one end. Misha shoots him a hurt and slightly muzzy glare, and then Mike’s feet are in his lap, toes digging into his ribs.

“Push play, moron,” Mike grins, and okay.

Okay.

~*~

Okay, so. A fuckton of people almost die in the season two finale. By the time someone actually kicks the bucket Misha’s liver (and every other organ in his body) is so grateful he shoves his glass in the air and bellows, “TO KATE!” at the top of his lungs, and all three of them dissolve into snorting ugly giggles. They’d had to alternate with ginger ale half way through before they croaked of alcohol poisoning, which is only getting funnier as the night wears on. That Misha has ginger ale, that every time Mike takes a sip he sneezes—pick one, it lasts them for a while.

Then Mike insists they _have_ to go back to the one where DiNozzo gets the plague, if only because Jared spent the finale completely baffled at Michael Weatherly looking like death warmed over, and for that one the drinking game involves a shot every single time someone makes a movie reference.

Jared’s half-way to passed out before they even skip to the episode with Misha in it, limbs sprawled wide all over the couch pushing Misha closer to Mike’s side. He’s half tucked against the man, Mike tangling their legs together to keep them from falling onto the floor, and Jared barely jerks when Mike whoops at Misha’s face on-screen.

“Ohmigod, he’s _soooo_ hot,” Mike croons with the tv-girls in his Shirley Temple voice; Misha groans and covers his face, tries not to shiver or anything stupid because it’s breathy and practically in his ear, and he’s really fucking drunk by now, none of this is a good idea. “Quick, quick, give him your number. Heyyyy, hot guy with a bloody beaten woman in your trunk! Check me out!”

“You’ve seen this before,” Misha protests with a squawk. “That hasn’t—You’ve _seen_ this before!”

“Best part, best part, don’t ruin it,” Mike insists, smacking Misha’s thigh as the bellow of—what is that? A didgeridoo?—kicks off the opening credits. Misha can’t. It’s just. Then Mike’s bouncing, shouting, “Gibbs! Gibbs! Gibbs! Gibbs! Gibbs!” and Irv leaps up, starts howling like it’s a trick he’s learned on cue and then, “TONY! Tony Tony Tony Tony Tony— _Ziiiiva!_ ” Then, just as Misha’s getting the hang of cheering for each character showing up on screen, Jenny Shepherd the Director of NCIS comes on and Mike slaps a hand over Misha’s mouth hard enough to—to make his mouth feel bruised, but when Donald Mallard pops up Mike is back to shouting, “Duckyduckyduckyduck,” and he falls off the sofa he’s laughing so hard.

Mike, that is. Mike falls off the sofa. Irv prances around his head looking to play, and Misha’s precariously perched, lips throbbing pleasantly like they’ve been kissed, and Mike is on the floor, giggling so uncontrollably he has to hold his ribs.

“Dude, you’re on the floor,” Jared grumbles. He then proceeds to octopus all over the mostly vacated couch, shoving Misha off with one of his big yeti feet.

Misha lands on his knees with a yelp, sprawls forward and somehow—he’s not ever going to be sure exactly—he collides with Mike as he sits up and Mike’s ankle knocks him off balance and on his back but… No, he really has no clue how he ends up crammed between the sofa and the coffee table with Mike barely catching himself in time to not squash him, one hand braced on either side of his head, the yarn balls from his owl hat brushing the lobes of his ears.

“Ah, man,” Mike snickers, “You got Paddywhacked.”

“I got Padabooted,” Misha protests pitifully, “off my own couch!”

“It’s okay,” Mike promises, maybe a little too seriously. Misha did not require his face being patted. “Oops, sorry,” he sniggers when a thumb pokes his already battered lip into one of his canines and Misha makes a little hurt noise. “I’m sorry. Shh, shh. It’s okay.”

“What’s okay?” Misha asks, not sure why they’re whispering except that Jared’s already started to snore, but even less sure of why he’s wrapped both hands around Mike’s wrists, or why Mike’s letting him.

“Jen’s gonna come get him in the morning,” Mike breathes, almost soundlessly, around his smile. “Not gonna be a fucking moron, and then you’re gonna get your couch back.”

“So that you can crash on it,” is the first thing out of Misha’s mouth, probably the absolute dead last on any sane sort of list of what he should’ve said instead. Should’ve said, _Yay Jensen’s not a fuckwit!_ or _Thank you for the sake of my sofa_. Or anything else, really.

Mike looks like he maybe knows this, because his nose wrinkles a little before smoothing out entirely, his whole expression curious, watching him. And Misha, he can’t—he can’t breathe all of a sudden, the air’s too warm between them, he can’t feel it in his lungs. Or maybe he can, and that’s why his skin feels like it’s too tight. _Saran wrap in a microwave_ comes to mind, one of Jared’s insane metaphors.

“Does that mean,” Mike says finally, almost…hesitant despite his cheeky smile, “that Irv and I need to find ourselves a cab?”

Fuck. Hadn’t thought this through. Misha’s apartment is pretty damn basic—living room, kitchen, one bedroom, bathroom down the hall. He doesn’t—he doesn’t really have the extra blankets to make the floor comfortable, and no taxi driver is going to take Irv, and he isn’t about to demand Mike trust him enough to leave Irv here—

“Me,” he blurts, then, “My. My bed. It’s big enough.” because he doubts that first part made much sense.

He knows, without a flicker of a doubt, how monumentally fucked he is, really. It just takes a second to sink in.

“Yeah?” Mike says, though, a little like Christmas just came early (or maybe like he was just offered an alternative to sleeping on the floor, it’s hard to tell). “Well, come on then,” he orders, leaning back in a way that deliberately drags the yarn ends of his hat over Misha’s face, “before I make you eat my fuzzy balls.”

On screen Misha has just turned himself in for grand theft auto to get out of a murder/kidnapping charge. It seems strangely appropriate.

~*~

“This is my, ah, room,” Misha says, feeling all of twelve years old he’s so jittery. He’s scared Mike can feel him shaking where they’re pressed together, hip to shoulder, because walking with four legs gave them a better chance of not falling over on the way here. Or something.

“Are you cold, man?” Mike asks instead, tugging him closer to his side with a worried crease between his eyebrows.

“Maybe,” Misha lies, pretending his hand isn’t burning up where it’s clutching a fistful of fabric over Mike’s bellybutton. He forces his fingers to uncurl with sheer drunken will and then pries himself away from Mike with the same determination, pasting what has to be a stupid smile on his face as he goes to his dresser and starts rummaging in the drawers. “Sleep shirt?” he offers without looking, shoving the first tee he finds in Mike’s direction. They’re about the same size, which is kind of…it’s doing weird things to Misha’s tummy is what.

“Yeah good, I don’t wanna—“ Mike grins and makes a show of sniffing his shirt, all of which Misha can tell without turning around. “I smell like dog.”

“Pfft,” Misha says, and what he means is, _There are worse things to smell like,_ but also, _I really, really don’t mind._

His bed’s going to smell like Mike tomorrow. Hell, his bed’s going to smell like Mike _tonight_. Maybe (almost definitely) in the light of day this will seem creepy, but right now? Not so much.

Misha tugs himself free of the thrift store sweater with his back still turned, trying not to look like he’s hunching but honestly more concerned with staying upright. Sleep shirt, sleep shirt, and he doesn’t usually wear them honestly, but he shoves his limbs and things into something darkish and bluish, makes himself focus on trying to decide what color it really is in the dark so he won’t freak out about stripping off his jeans. _Boxers are a boy’s best friend,_ he thinks, and points himself in the direction of the bed.

It should not hit him like a fist to the gut when he sees Mike in his shirt. It should not. It especially should not while Mike’s boxers have…tiny orange cows on them and he is still wearing the damn owl hat.

Sitting on Misha’s bed, with his heels kicked out haphazardly, barely propped up on one hand while the other turns down his bed and smoothes out the sheets in a show of invitation.

Monumentally, epically fucked, Misha wraps his arms around his chest to make himself smaller (and therefore less likely to slip and grab Mike) and shuffles forward. With great skill and even worse luck, he actually manages to stumble over thin air and carpet, and it’s going to be spectacular when he lands, he can tell already, but Mike stands up and _catches_ him, because God is a complete and utter bastard.

Misha thinks he manages to get his shoulders to obey in Mike’s grasp, straightening and, you know, manly. He is half an inch taller than Michael Fucking Rosenbaum, and by god, if ever he needed half an inch— He abandons that sentence.

“Didn’t beat me,” Mike says, and Misha tries very hard not to cry when his thumbs start stroking absent circles at the tip of his collarbone. He’s just opening his mouth to say, _No, I generally don’t physically abuse my guests_ , when Mike gives him a little shake and takes a careful step back and a quiet breath Misha must be imagining sounds unsteady. “So.”

Misha starts crawling into bed with the single-minded determination to go to sleep before things go horribly pear-shaped, eyes so fixed on the coverlet that when Mike climbs in on his heels—literally _on his heels_ , one knee thumping his calf with Mike all but splayed over his back while he growls out, “Okay, not that chivalrous.”—he’s completely blindsided, makes a manly grunt and rolls over (squeaks and flails onto his back), and Mike’s right there. Right _there._ Bare knees against Misha’s thinly covered backside and Misha’s traitorous thighs splayed around his hips, and those _stupid owl balls in his face again._

Without much put into the thought process Misha makes an annoyed sound and pulls off the stupid hat, which…which just makes Mike duck his head with a laugh and his short brown hair stick up all over the place. And Mike’s head, as ridiculous as it looks, is a lot, lot closer because of the ducking and the laughing and—

Misha’s fingers trace the line of his jaw, lift it and curl around the angles. There’s no—there’s no other way for Mike to take his intent, no real way Misha could try to claim that this isn’t… His hands are on Mike’s face. His thumb is running under his chin, over the faint rasp of stubble and lower, skidding over the bump of his Adam’s apple and Mike ducks his head again with a gasp, leans into the curve of his palm.

“So…” Mike says, almost soundless, “what’s my aura look like, yoga master?”

Oh. Apparently there are other ways to take this. Misha lets his hands drop along with most everything in his chest and shuts his eyes, ready and willing to die as soon as he gives him an answer. “Purp—mmff?”

Then again, because this can’t be happening, and this time the noise comes out higher and desperate—“ _Mrrff?”—_ and no, definitely muffled against Mike’s mouth.

Mike’s mouth. Mike’s lips, Mike’s breath slipping out as he makes like he’s going to move away, and Misha locks his fingers in the too-short hair at the back of his neck and drags him back, too close, crushing them together. His whole body surges into the kiss, so hungry, starved; he hadn’t thought his dry spell was that much of a hardship but god _fuck_. And how much of that is alcohol and how much of it is Mike—

Mike, whose palms are stroking down his sides, catching and smoothing the fabric, calming Misha into a more manageable trembling mess whether he means to or not. Mike, whose skin feels warm and cool at once where he can touch him, inside of Misha’s wrist pressed to the curve of his nape, the slide of his shirt hitched up by one knee, Misha’s shin against Mike’s calf, tangle of touching and still not enough. Mike’s lips are moving against his, not like a kiss like he’s trying to say something and Misha strains desperately to hear, tries—

Irv _BARKS._

Loud and alarmed. Misha jumps so hard their teeth clack and Mike yanks back, hissing around a split lip to stare at his dog. Irv prances nervously but doesn’t in any way disappear into thin air, hackles not all the way settled.

“Shiiiit,” Mike gets out, rough and low, one hand rubbing absent circles on Misha’s knee cap. Misha feels tight all over, like he’s holding too much air in his lungs. Then Mike’s scrambling off the bed, hair even worse than before and his shirt—Misha’s shirt—rumbled and stretched on one side where Misha’s fist was clenched in it. “I don’t—I don’t think he’s seen me kiss someone before, sorry.”

Misha doesn’t actually care. Actually. He’s in an empty bed.

“Sorry,” Mike says again, but oh, it’s a lot better because it’s—he’s—leaning over Misha to say it within kissing distance, and even though Misha’s eyes nearly cross to see it, that’s a real smile. Damn, that’s a real smile. All the way to his cheekbones, crinkling little laugh lines around his blue blue eyes telling Misha that he’s… “I gotta—gotta take him out, real quick, I promise.”

His kiss is real quick too, even though Misha tries to steal a taste to analyze while Mike is gone. He tastes like tequila and copper, stubble and sunlight, and Misha falls asleep trying to think up more ways to describe it.

~*~

Someone has killed his brains.

The Castiel fans are going to cry.

Misha drags himself hands first out of bed, crawling to the bathroom with his head dead weight slung between his shoulders so his brains can dribble out, leaving a trail for whoever finds his body. Then he curls around the cool porcelain basin and tells himself he’s not going to throw up, even after the second time he ralphs.

Also. Also someone has killed his intestines.

“You done in here?” a voice croaks at the doorway, then, “Fuck. Never mind.”

Misha manages to turn his nearly decimated skull, but Jared’s already lumbering back to the living room. Right. Company. He yawns, sniffs his breath, and spends the next fifteen minutes very friendly with his toothbrush, toothpaste, and bottle of Listerine. He uses his free hand to spray Febreze in the general direction of the toilet, scowling at his bleary reflection.

“If you don’t breathe in there it should be okay,” he grunts to Jared as he shuffles in the kitchen, wishing not for the first time that he owned a pair of bunny slippers. “Otherwise you’re risking cancer.”

Jared glares pointedly at Misha’s coffee maker and jabs it, then him. “Make it work.”

“Waiting for a copy of its union card.” Mugh, Misha sounds like he gargled with gravel, feels like it too, and he prods Mr. Coffee with one hand while he ducks a little to scratch behind Irv’s ears.

Behind—

“Oh _fuck_ ,” Misha says in what is somehow the quietest, most gut wrenching tone he’s never used, because it feels like it tore something loose on the way up and he white-knuckles the sink, spitting out a long line of profanity when his stomach has nothing to give. “Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckshitgoddamngod _damn_ itfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck—“

Jared makes a half-curious, half-dead noise.

“Kissed Mike, kissed _Mike_ ,” Misha hisses, curling in on himself in a cringe.

“Drama queen,” Jared drawls, like he would be smiling if he had the energy.

Misha grabs a fistful of his shirt but doesn’t lift his head, because he isn’t getting it. “Kissed Mike, and then _fell asleep_.”

Jared’s eyebrow twitches. “Did Mike kiss you back?”

Misha jerks back a little into himself, trying to force his tone into a semblance of what it had been before. “That’s. He…” It just winds up strangled sounding, so Misha cuts himself off, trying to convey with his eyes just how very fucked he is. And miserable. He fell _asleep._

Mike. But Mike. Mike, he did—didn’t he? Did—

Jensen picks that moment to push the buzzer. Misha knows it’s Jensen because Mike told him it would be, but also because that’s a decidedly pathetic sounding buzz. It doesn’t hurt that Jared’s Jendar is picking that moment to kick in, if the suddenly even more stony, blank expression is anything to go by. Still.

“It—could be the mailman,” Misha says. It could also be Barack Obama come to demand Misha cease twitter stalking his wife (which is double irrelevant seeing as he defollowed her a while ago). He realizes a little belatedly that Jared obviously used the spare key Misha had given the both of them to get into his building last night, leaving Jensen high and dry. “You wanna…hit the can?”

“Yeah, actually,” Jared says, putting his empty coffee mug on the counter before he leaves. “Maybe I’ll get cancer.”

Misha fights back his sigh with a soft groan. If he lets Jen up and they get into it outside the bathroom there’s no way Mike will stay sleeping forever and ever until Misha gives up and buys a new mattress to cram next to the sofa after boarding up his room just in case. They’re ruining his game plan. He answers the buzz, feeling suddenly more hung-over than he was before.

“Hullo?”

 _“Hey, man. It’s, uh, it’s Jensen. Hey, is Jared there?”_

“Jared who?”

“ _Is he—“_ Jensen lets out a breath that sends a flurry of static through the speakers. “ _Misha, I just want to make sure he’s okay.”_

“He’s not going to shrivel up and die any time soon.” It could—maybe should—come out meaner than it does, but for all that Jared’s in his home (and therefore sort of bizarrely under his protection) Misha’s not too sleep-fuddled and alcohol-fucked to realize how outnumbered Jensen must be feeling. “He’s hurting, Jen,” Misha adds, quieter, and doesn’t say, _You hurt him._

 _“Fuck.”_ There’s a click like Jensen let go of the intercom button to run a hand through his hair, but he’s right back. “ _Misha, please let me up. Please, man, let me see him, let me tell him I—that I fucked up and I’m sorry and he means, he means_ everything _and I’ve never had—_ “

Jared shoulders past Misha before he even realized he was back in the room, eases Irv back with one foot before he’s out the door, running down the halls of Misha’s apartment building in his socks and crazy couch hair. Jensen keeps babbling, saying some things Jared’s going to be sorry he missed, and then the intercom buzzes with Jensen’s gasped, _“Jare—“_ and a quiet _“oomph”_ and clicks off.

Because, as Misha has already ascertained, God is a bastard, Misha’s cell starts screaming at him.

 _Stand! By! Your! MAAAAAAAN! Und show da vurld you luff ‘eem!_

“Jesus Christ,” he blurts in an attempt to make it shut up please god make it shut up as he scrambles across the kitchen, down the hall, and into the room where Mike’s asleep (hopefully please please let him be asleep) where his jeans are tangled at the foot of his bed. The bed with _Mike_ in it. Mike, who no matter what he chooses to do about last night, does not deserve drunken Russians butchering Dolly Parton at him first thing in the morning.

 _Stand! By! Your—_

“Yes, what?” he whispers, voice begging Victoria to keep quiet while he—

While he gets distracted, because Mike really is in his bed. Sprawled on his stomach, arms wrapped around both pillows but especially the one he’s stolen from Misha’s side, burying his face in it, breathing deep and even. The covers have dragged low to his hips, light brown of the shirt Misha had leant him riding high on his back, leaving a good hand’s-length of sleep sweaty skin bare at the dip in his spine.

“I did not call to listen to you _breathe heavily_ ,” Victoria says so loudly Misha jumps, and Mike shifts in his sleep.

“Shitshitshit,” Misha breathes just to keep her quiet as he high tails it out of his room, letting the word rise to a more normal level in the sanctity of the kitchen, where it’s a smack in the head to remember Jared and Jensen. “ _Fuck_ , just—hang on—“

“Are you on the run from the Mafia?” Victoria asks, sounding torn between delight and disbelief. “Wait, could you have been a contender?”

“Marie is there to laugh at me too, isn’t she?” he grinds out as he tries not to stomp towards the window, where if he angles right and they aren’t standing too close to the building he might be able to catch a glimpse of his co-stars. Irv starts licking his leg. “Go sit down,” he tells the dog absently, shouldering the curtains to one side.

“Why? Are you pregnant?”

“You only ever give me this kind of shit with an audience.” There. It’s a bit precarious, but he can at least see they aren’t beating on each other. Jared’s arms are flailing about a lot, though, so there might be inadvertent beating if Jensen’s dumb enough to get within striking distance.

“Now,” she laughs, “we both know that’s not true.”

“Why are you calling?” he sighs, watching as Jensen drops the hand scrubbing over his face and snaps something that makes Jared’s expression slack. “I am very busy and important.”

“As your wife I have certain obligations—“

“Yeah and as your husband I can ignore you. Freely. And at whim.” Movement catches at the corner of his eye but it’s just Irv trotting down the hallway, probably realizing for the first time this morning that he’s been minus his person. Still, it’s reminder enough to drop his voice. “Seriously, Vicky, is there a reason? Because I have company—“

“Oh, _nice!_ ” she crows, probably with one arm in the air, and he can hear Marie give a half hearted cheer too. Misha pulls a face. “Wait. It’s not Jared and Jensen, is it? Because unless they’ve let you in on a big sweaty threesome it doesn’t count.”

“Count for what?”

“We’re showing up at the airport _tomorrow_ ,” she says in the same tone she used when reminding him of science projects junior year, “and I don’t care if you have to order him online, you are bringing a date over for dinner.”

“Oh come on, Vic,” he whines instantly, barely audible, “I just—I barely met this guy and—“

“THERE IS A GUY!”

“ _Ow,_ ” he snaps, shaking his head. “I didn’t need that eardrum anyway.”

Jensen looks exhausted even from this far away, every bone in his body slumped and tired. He’s dragging the heel of one hand under his eye, shoulders lifting in a shaking shrug, and Misha feels like his heart is going to give out with out much it’s willing Jared to do something, anything. And then—

“YES!” he whoops, inadvertently and far too loud, doing a little fist pumping of his own as Jared grabs Jensen by the scruff of his shirt and hauls him in for a kiss. “Hallelujah and praise be! Right, when are you coming? Wait, just email me, I’ll pick you up. Gotta run, bye!”

He nearly trips over Irv when he careens into his room, ready to bounce on the bed and maybe rough up Mike’s hair even more because—“Jared and Jensen are back on!” he blurts instead, skidding to a halt. Mike’s up. It’s thrown off his bed jumping plans.

Mike’s not just up, he’s standing at the foot of the bed, putting his jeans on with sharp, efficient moves. “Great,” he says with a tight smile, flicking a glance in Misha’s direction but not actually at him. He puffs out an exaggerated breath, patting his chest like he has pockets there, and grins. “Well, I gotta get going—got a big audition coming up and I’ve been spending way too much time dicking around. C’mon, Irv, let’s head out.”

He makes eye contact with the dog.

“Wait,” Misha tries, stumbling after him down the hall with his heart a hard dreading knot in his throat. “You don’t, uh. You don’t want breakfast or something? Or I could—“ Mike grabs his keys and wallet and Irv’s leash off the counter, and that somehow hurts more than anything because it’s too fast, like he’s surprised they’re still there. “I could run lines with you or something,” he finishes, too small.

Mike finally looks at him, and for all that his eyes are pointed the right direction they look glazed, unfocused. Like he’s not seeing him at all. There’s a small scab on his lip, and Misha’s insides lock so hard he feels like he’s going to be sick again.

“N’aw, man, it’s cool,” Mike says too bright, gives Misha some sort of weird teeth-clicking wink, and adds, “I’ve got this,” just before he slides out the door.

~*~

Jared comes back for his shoes at some point, and Misha’s still slumped against the wall where he landed when the door shut, staring at the floor. Jensen is at his side, their knuckles locked and intertwined without actually holding hands.

Misha pastes on his brightest smile and congratulates them until they get out of his apartment. And if Jared gives him some weird looks it’s not like he knows why Mike left.

They leave pretty quickly, and Misha is even decently sure it has nothing to do with him.

~*~

The owl hat is lying in a forgotten flop of yarn in his bedroom, bulging eyes judging him from where they’re peering from under the bed. Something low in his ribcage gives a sharp tug as he scoops it up, something that wants to run and hide it even as his brain is screaming, _he’ll want this back even if he doesn’t want—_

 _He does not want to see you_. Misha clenches his teeth around each deliberate word, trying to make them sink in as he curls up in bed that night with the hat in one hand and his too-quiet phone in the other. _He’s mad you kissed him. He’s freaking out. He does not want to see you._

But. He’d seemed so supportive of Jared and Jensen—oh for crying out loud, Misha knows that’s different, it wasn’t Mike’s dick or hole in question. It’s a really sick, crass way of putting it and Misha would pay good money and donate a kidney if he could make his brain accept the homophobic angle on this. It just won’t compute, can’t be made to accept that Mike would cut someone out of his life for one easily dismissible ‘threat’ on his sexual identity. He just _wouldn’t_ , not the Mike he knows, not without talking about it or trying to work something out and failing really badly.

Maybe he just needs to calm down. Misha tries to make his fingers unclench in the yarn but he takes a breath and the sheets/wool/air smells like Mike.

He can’t…really remember specifics about what happened. He’s kind of scared to. He knows he kissed Mike, he knows Irv barked, he knows Mike left. That’s probably good enough.

Mike doesn’t call. He doesn’t call in the morning. He doesn’t answer the three well-spaced texts Misha allows himself to send over a span of five hours, either.

Misha lets himself write: < _Left your owl hat, man. Holding it for ransom. >_

And: < _Have been told sometimes need 2 provide proof of life. Will send bucket of buffalo wings. >_

And then: < _I declare blue a flavor. > _just because he can’t send _I’msorryi’msorrypleasefuckeditallupcallmepleasecallme_ without feeling even worse and pissing off his predictive text, and he has to send something.

He feels a little better afterwards, even going so far as to lean back in his chair on set while he waits for his scene (or his phone to buzz). If the flavor blue isn’t enough to get a response…

Two hours later he dials just to leave a voicemail.

“Hello?”

“Mike?” Misha almost pulls something in his spine sitting up so fast. “I didn’t—Hi!”

“Hey.” Mike sounds distracted and—fake. “What’s up?”

Misha’s not dumb enough to ask about the unanswered texts. He has testicles. “I was just, uh.” Oh god, he has testicles but apparently he doesn’t have the intelligence of a kindergartener because the first thing in his head is falling out of his mouth. “My family’s coming in for a visit and we’d really like to have you over for dinner, if…uh.” His voice keeps getting smaller, but not nearly small enough.

Mike is being quiet enough for the both of them. Then, “Your family?” warped and beaten into something resembling a question.

It hits Misha like the first slam of a tidal wave, smashing his chest and spinning him like a rag doll. He must have heard. Misha must’ve said something about being a husband on the phone and Mike— “You didn’t—“

“Know you were married? No. I don’t know why I thought something like that might come up in conversation. But you said _family_ and I like to know about the homes I’m wrecking. So two kids? Three?”

It feels like Mike shoved a hand down Misha’s throat and ripped the air from his lungs. “I don’t,” he croaks, painfully breathless, “Wait, let me explain—“

“I have been making puppy eyes at you since we _met._ I—You had all that time to explain what you wanted but you let me _guess,_ Misha,” he spits out, like he can’t even calm down enough to unlock his jaw, “so I guessed and then—you’re fucking _married?_ _Christ._ ”

“Mike,” he begs, everything in him thin and breaking. “Please.”

Static hisses on the line with Mike’s sharp intake of breath. “I let you meet my _dog!_ ”

Misha’s left with the dial tone and Mike’s disgust ringing through his head for the rest of shooting, which does wonders for Castiel’s monotone but doesn’t bode well for the rest of his miserable existence. He wishes it was one of those PTSD things where he’d wind up at home with no memory of the last six hours or how he got there. Instead he gets to live through every excruciating second knowing, _I did this I did this to myself I did this to Mike._

He’d liked him. Had, but. No, no buts, just had. Made puppy eyes at him, apparently.

They get off work at a surprising 7 P.M. and Misha takes ten deliberate steps towards his trailer before he’s stopped, his heart broken and coughing the pieces back up. He swallows them down because it’s Jensen. Jensen, who for all that he’s spent today happier than anyone can remember seeing him, can’t sit still unless Jared’s at his side and who’s still got a glimmer of waiting-for-the-other-shoe-to-drop-ness around his eyes. Of course he’d be drawn to Misha, the walking casualty of matching footwear.

“Dude, what happened?” There’s a little bit of Dean lingering in his voice, and Misha is oh so tempted to let Cas take the reins and get him home. “You look like Hitler killed the Dalai Lama’s puppy.”

He could stall. He could leave. He could try. “Mike and I aren’t, uh. Talking,” he finishes dully, even though ‘not talking’ sounds a lot less permanent than the truth. Then he gives Jensen a smile, because he doesn’t know what else to do.

Jensen looks at him in a way that means Jared spilled about the kiss. Honestly, why Jared couldn’t have spilled about something a little more important to Mike… “So he didn’t know about Victoria.”

“He didn’t know I was married,” Misha says, a slight but important correction, “so he didn’t know to ask about Victoria. And because he didn’t ask I assumed that he knew. I fucked everything up,” he laughs, because it hurts.

“Misha—“

“No, I—I don’t want to bring you guys down, okay?” He tacks on the question hastily, trying desperately to convey how much he means it. How much he doesn’t want Jensen to tell Jared because he’ll just try to fix it. It’d be like trying to mend a popped balloon with scotch tape.

“Misha,” Jensen huffs again, then purses his lips, looking uncomfortable and at the ground. “Damn it. Okay, you know… So there was this guy—lets call him…I don’t fucking know, lets call him Mike but a hypothetical Mike because no other name in the English language sounds like Mike but isn’t.”

Misha instantly tries thinking of one and comes up with Dyke. Yeah, no.

“So this guy named Mike once upon a time had this boyfriend, Bob. And Bob had this wife named Helen. But Bob told Mike, promised him up and down and freaking sideways that he loved him, that Helen understood, that Helen knew and approved but didn’t like to talk about it, you know? So they just had to be discreet, act like they weren’t so they wouldn’t rub Helen’s nose in it when the three of them hung out together. Which they did. A lot. And then one day Helen caught them at it, and she _hadn’t_ _known_ , didn’t know and Bob was a fucking dickhead who fucked both of them up and over and broke their hearts and Mike really _liked_ Helen, too, so. Yeah. Just,” Jensen finishes, yanking Misha’s sleeve up his forearm with one hand while he clicks a pen and starts writing across the bared skin, “keep that in mind while you go to this address I’m not giving you right now.”

Misha stays too still while he finishes, watching the concentration and concern on Jensen’s face. Then he puts a hand on the back of Jensen’s neck to hold him still and puts their foreheads together, only a little surprised when he lets him. “Don’t be scared,” he says, as much to himself as Jensen.

“Easier said than done, right?” Jensen responds, giving Misha’s head a little butt as they move away.

“Bob’s name wasn’t really Tom, was it?” Misha asks just to be sure, and gets a look so real and fast he’s kind of stunned by it.

“Are you _kidding?”_ Jensen demands, “Mike would sooner sleep with Irv.”

And it’s weird, but that makes him feel better.

~*~

He knows the instant Mike sees him, his steady jog faltering and then slowing to a walk a good block away. Irv doesn’t spot him until much closer, full-body wagging and tugging at his leash in excitement. If Mike had looked one tenth as happy to see him Misha would have left right then and called himself grateful. As it is he stays sitting on Mike’s front steps and makes a conscious effort to not curl up in a ball.

Ten feet away Mike lets go of Irv’s leash so he won’t be dragged closer. It’s a dark grey zip up jacket today, white shirt, black track pants. No hint of color or character anywhere, and Misha says a thorough hello to the spot behind Irv’s ears so he won’t blurt, “Brought your owl hat,” and bolt.

“I’d ask how you know where I live, but I think I’m just gonna let you know I have a lawyer who specializes in restraining orders.” Mike’s voice comes out more annoyed than he probably meant it to be, gaze skating off to the rain gutter before snapping back to Misha, probably waiting for him to flinch.

“I owe you an explanation,” Misha says carefully, each word hand picked in the half hour he’s been waiting in the chilled autumn air. “I was stupid in assuming you knew.”

He takes a deep breath and stands up, nudging Irv out of the way with his knee so he doesn’t have anything to hide behind. It’s cold, he’s cold, tore his coat off when the sleeve kept getting in the way of the directions on his arm and left it in the car he’d parked on the street even though there’s plenty of room in the driveway. This is one of those neighborhoods that protects anonymity through a close-knit community—he’d been talked to twice by people walking by, saved each time by the fact they recognized him from _Supernatural_ —and he’s stalling, he knows, but parking in the driveway would have been even more of a violation of space than plopping down outside his door.

“Um,” he starts just as a placeholder, not an uncertainty. “Victoria and I met in high school. Can I just—“ He has to quick sidestep to keep Mike from barreling past him, flinching for the first time with his hands up, bracing for a blow. “Can I please just tell you the truth and then I’ll leave, I promise. You won’t ever have to see me again,” he adds with a ghost of a smile that means he knows there are ways to not see people even if your eyes tell you different.

Mike looks like he’s clenching his teeth hard enough to crack them, but he doesn’t move again.

Misha swallows around nothing and tries to go back to the script. “Victoria and I met in high school. We connected like we were always supposed to go together, but…not like that. In every other way, but not that one. We couldn’t. Just weren’t built that way, I guess.” He cringes again but this one’s for himself, not for show. “Ah… Her dad is very Catholic. Like. Scary Catholic, _mean_ Catholic, the brutal guilt-tripping frothing homophobic kind of Catholic. She’s all he has, you know, and you’d think that would grant her a little leeway on this but I was there when she tried to come out and he _threw_ things at her. Great big heavy things that would’ve done some serious damage if—” If Misha hadn’t been there, yanked her out of the way and spent the next week limping around with a deep purple bruise along one thigh from a hand-carved mantle clock.

“Anyway. She hadn’t come right out and said the world lesbian, so he took it on himself to…steer her in the ‘right’ direction. Claiming to have seen the light and making a show of suddenly dating me didn’t even do that much to make him ease up. He’d spend hours lecturing me on all these signs to look for and report back on and every single time I walked in that house I felt sick and she had to _live_ there. But it just. It got better, eventually. He backed off little by little, and there really weren’t any guys worth risking anything over on my end so we kept it up. All the way to college.” Where it’d been so much easier to breathe. Misha can’t help smiling a little bit.

“I was doing odd jobs and working towards getting an internship under Bill Clinton—not like that—” he adds even though Mike hasn’t given any indication of amusement, “and she fell in love.”

It’s a shrug for him now but it was this huge tumbling fall for her, and she’d been so blissfully happy he’d gotten a contact high just from knowing them. He shakes himself off. “So, uh. Yeah. That happened. And she just knew that this was it for her. That this was it for both of them. So of course her dad started taking an interest again, bearing down at even the mention of her ‘female friend’ in this huge oppressive black poisonous cloud...” He’d really been hoping he could avoid hand gestures. Oh well. And fuck. “He was just—He started showing up to her classes, started grilling me again, breathing down all our necks and it was killing her, in pieces, and she’s my _best friend._ ” Misha’s begging now, maybe for understanding, maybe for something else. “She’s my family.”

Mike’s face stays blank. Misha starts a little, jerks his gaze away, wondering how long he was staring.

“So, um. So I proposed. And Marie—that’s Vicky’s partner—she moved in. And I dated—still date, sometimes—guys and we all lived happily ever after. For the most part,” he adds in a quiet semblance of a chuckle. “And yeah.”

Misha pulls the owl hat from his back pocket and lays it out on the top step. “And now,” he says as he straightens up, carving out a bright tone in his vocal chords, “I need to go pick them up at the airport.”

He leaves. He doesn’t say see you later or around or raise a hand to wave. Irv follows him down to the edge of the road but retreats at the sound of Mike’s whistle. Misha drives ten whole minutes before he pulls over and fumbles out his phone, fingers shaking on a text to Victoria that says he’s running late but he _will_ be there, and he doesn’t say he can’t see to drive.

~*~

Vicky takes one look at him and drops her bags, but Marie beats her to a hug by about two seconds. She’s so sturdy for all that the top of her head barely reaches his chin, but he makes a show of stumbling back anyway, going, “Whoa-a-a-a,” like she’s a little kid he wants to puff up. She jabs her knuckles just over his kidneys and says, “Watch it, babushka,” which is where Jensen got it from.

“You look half dead,” Victoria announces, chucking him under the chin with hardly any hint of humor behind her dark-rimmed glasses. “These Canadians not been feeding you right?”

He knows his eyes are red and swollen, cheeks probably still damp, but it is so damn good to see her and he tells her so, crushing them both to his chest. “Eh, that’s why I ordered in the two finest personal chefs from the states, right ladies?”

Victoria smirks. “As if she’d let me near anything more complicated than a salad.”

“Oh, I’ll feed you,” Marie growls, her brown eyes flashing in a way he hasn’t seen since That Asshole Jackson (as she called him). “I’ll feed you within an inch of your life.”

He makes himself laugh. “I believe it.” He does, too, is the thing; Marie Marquez owns her own restaurant and honest to god made Chef Ramsey cream his pants with her chocolate Baileys pudding cake with butterscotch sauce.

“If I can get you the ingredients,” he prompts when he reminds her of that, throwing their bags over both shoulders.

“Honey, I’ll make you one big enough to bathe in.” She tucks herself as close to his side as Victoria on their way out, tiny little firecracker at his hip and Vic’s hand resting at the nape of his neck, and he tells himself he feels a lot more better than he does.

~*~

The thing about being around the girls is that he doesn’t appreciate how _effortless_ it all is. There is such a huge potential for disaster being married to a lesbian with a life partner, and yet. They just…fit. Misha’s never felt like a third wheel with them, just a third planet in orbit. He doesn’t have a name for what, exactly, they’re orbiting, just that it’s warm and good and feels like love, and probably would burn brighter than the sun if it was something corporeal.

It’s like that in his apartment, Marie snooping around in his kitchen “to get a feel for it” and Victoria pinging from one wall to the other, picking up interesting books or DVDs and leaving them just as quickly, keeping up a constant commentary on his décor, his clothing, the show, whatever pops into her head. She’s not flighty or scatterbrained the same way Marie isn’t actually anal retentive; they’re just fiercely observant, and there’s so much to see. Victoria thinks with her mouth open, always looking for the right words. Marie thinks with her mouth shut, usually because it unnerves people.

So it really shouldn’t surprise him when Marie declares his refrigerator devoid of anything edible and starts methodically organizing his phonebook in order of Most Likely Not To Suck while Victoria sneaks up behind him and corners him on the couch with _Bride & Prejudice—_which he doesn’t _own_ , by the way, they must have brought it with them _._

“Girls night, babushka,” Marie singsongs distractedly as she joins them with the yellow pages.

He groans and lets her drop her ankles in his lap. “I have work tomorrow. I can’t show up with glitter on my nails again.”

“That is what you think,” Victoria says, combing her fingers through his hair.

Forty five minutes later he is all but comatose on Mumbai Maharaja’s finest, Victoria rubbing some sort of eucalyptus oil into his scalp, and Marie painting clear lacquer on his toenails (which is closest he let her get to sparkles). He kind of wants to curl up in a ball and sleep for a year, but he’s caught hovering between the brink of exhaustion and the brink of tears and he doesn’t trust himself to fall. Besides, No Life Without Wife just started. Either choice would be a punishable offense.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah yeah,” Marie sings along, shimmying a little with the nail polish brush. She is nearest to the fumes.

“Ugh,” Misha says instead of purring like a cat under Vicky’s fingertips, flailing an arm out for the samosas. “Can you? Muh?”

“If you cannot reach it, you need to be cut off,” she tsks, giving him such another excellent rub down that it startles a moan out of him.

“I know what you’re doing,” he informs them when the song is over. His eyelids are just resting, words only a little bit slurred. “Lulling me. False sense.”

“You caught us,” Vicky says, voice low, smirking. “Watcha gonna do about it, tiger?”

“Probly snore at you,” he admits, snuggling a little bit closer.

“So,” Marie hums, and he realizes a little belatedly that she is actually giving him a foot rub. He’s never had one before—they’ve always seemed kind of unappealing. Which means nothing in the face of the whimper wrung out of his throat. “Are you going to tell us what happened?”

“Yeah,” he sighs after a minute, “always was.”

~*~

It’s nice and quiet in the morning, orbiting around each other, getting coffee/cereal/newspaper in a steady rotation, and he rotates out the door right on time with a kiss on both cheeks and a weightless feeling that lasts him all the way to work—locked in a trailer doing voice-overs—before he realizes part of that weightlessness is due to the fact that they’ve absconded with his phone.

“People call me on that phone,” he tells them via Jared’s cell during their lunch break.

“Nobody important,” Victoria shoots back calmly, and he has to admit (to himself inside his head) that he does feel a little better without being able to constantly check for missed messages. “P.S.,” she adds like this is a letter, “Marie has taken over your kitchen and you may never find it again. I hope you like gnocchi. Oh and why don’t you own _Gilmore Girls?_ What kind of hellhole existence are you living in?”

“The one where I don’t need to own _Gilmore Girls,_ ” he says, trying to sound firm and coming across desperate. Jared lifts an eyebrow so high Misha waits for it to fall off.

“Pfft, says you. Hey, you want to invite the boys over? We’ve got enough to feed ten armies, so that’s like, one Jared, right? The rest of us can scrape something together.”

Misha dutifully relays the message and watches Jared’s face light up. “Man, Vic and Marie are in town? Nobody told me!”

“I heard that,” Victoria deadpans.

“Shit,” Jared continues, which is just as well, “I’d love to, Misha, seriously. Are they gonna be in town for a while? Because Jensen’s got this thing planned tonight but I might be able to get him to reschedule—“

“Don’t worry about it,” Misha says too quickly, internally wincing as Victoria audibly perks up on the phone. “They’re here through the weekend—plenty of time to catch up.”

“Misha Dmitri Tippens Krushnic,” she purrs in a way that always meant imminent noogies in high school, “you have been holding out on me.”

“The set’s going through a tunnel,” he informs her and hangs up. Then, when Jared gives him a look, “She hijacked my phone!”

~*~

As long as he’s around people it isn’t too hard not to think, using all his focus on lines or conversations or not tripping over his own feet. Twitter. Twitter is a great distraction. You post one picture of a pony with a treadmill and it entertains them for _days_.

He doesn’t twit while he’s driving, though, because that’s irresponsible. He just cranks up the volume on his tinny rental car speakers and screams along to a song called Coma Girl he has no recollection of putting on his ipod, because his Mozart album is a) scratched and b) not scream-along kind of music.

He’s going to be in trouble when he doesn’t have someone to come home to.

Inside the apartment is quiet in that way that’s not really quiet at all, filled with smells and smiles and here-taste-thises, and he feels happy. Really. Lucky, blessed, stupidly grateful for his weird little family. Nothing’s missing that he ever really had, so…

There’s a knock at the door, which means—“Jared,” he blurts, a little surprised. No one else has a key.

“Must’ve bailed on Jensen,” Victoria drawls in a way that means she knows she’s going to open that door and find both of them behind it. Marie shuts him up by stuffing more gnocchi in his mouth and he has to turn away, fumbling the word, “Hot!”

“I’m sorry, can I help you?” Vicky asks. Misha’s blood instantly runs cold.

“Hi, I’m—You must be Victoria,” a low familiar voice says, and the temperature of Misha’s veins plummets to something barely above freezing. “I’m Michael. Rosenbaum.”

Marie grabs the side of his face and shoves it until he turns around and looks, and yeah, there he is, in Misha’s doorway, shaking hands with his wife, turning his endlessly blue eyes Misha’s way.

“Mfff,” is what he says, because his mouth is still full of pasta. He has to spit it into his hand because it’s still too hot and he doesn’t think he can swallow, and Marie makes a very motherly-sounding disgusted noise and shoves his hand over the sink, washing it off.

“Honestly, Misha,” she mutters around a smile, and Misha feels all of ten years old going to his first school dance. “Introduce us to your friend.”

“Right,” he tries, strained breathless, then clears his throat and faces Mike, head on, eye contact solid and…yeah, yeah it’s still good to drink him, even if it’s going to hurt low in his gut when he has to stop. “Mike, this is—my family. My wife, Victoria,” with a nod her way, and Vic flips her hair over her shoulder ready for a challenge but Mike just—Mike just smiles, but it’s still hard to read. “And Marie, her wife.”

That’s the part Mike tenses at, an almost imperceptible hitch in his shoulders that Misha is sure no one else notices. It was nothing at all to call Vicky his wife, Misha realizes, but to call her a lesbian and not have her deny it is something else. Misha wishes with a pang of longing that Mike could just trust him, but he hasn’t done much of anything to earn it.

“Yup,” Victoria says without skipping a beat, nodding with a seriousness that hints she wasn’t quite as oblivious to the tensing as he thought. “Going on eight years, now.”

“ _Nine_ ,” Marie corrects with an eye roll before landing her gaze on Rosenbaum with a quietly curious look and pasta dough in her hands. “Would you like to stay for dinner? I made enough to feed a Padalecki.”

A slow, beautiful smile breaks across Mike’s features, and Misha might even sway a little. “Yeah, definitely,” he says, and fuck if he isn’t staring right at Misha with something he’s too scared to decipher, “if you’ll have me.”

“W—“ Misha starts.

“We’ll have you!” Victoria decrees, hands in the air, and ushers him all the way inside.

Misha’s caught off-guard by the relieved weight that lifts from his chest when the door shuts behind him, the helpless grin on his face. He doesn’t really care if Mike can’t—he’s _here._ He came. That has to be a good sign, has to.

“Misha,” Marie scolds, dragging him down by the scalp, “I know you have dishes, because I bought you some this morning. So why don’t you go about setting them on the table, hm? And wash your hands.”

“I had dishes!” he protests dramatically, and then again more or less in Mike’s direction, “I had dishes.”

“Yes, well, now you have dishes that aren’t plastic.” She rolls her eyes and another ball of pasta dough. “Honestly, babushka, this is the last time I let you become rich and famous.”

If Mike looks a little startled by the nickname—probably realizing who he’s heard it from—Misha is blushing too hard to tell.

“Speaking of rich and famous,” Vicky breaks in, tapping her chin and then pointing at Mike, “weren’t you that one guy on that one thing that one time…?”

“Don’t listen to her,” Misha says to new plates in his arms because he has no filter on his brain, “I know for a fact that Tom Welling is the kryptonite to her lesbianism.”

“It’s a very teeny roadblock,” Victoria growls, unimpressed, and Mike saves them all by laughing.

“I’m sorry to say that he’s happily married,” Mike apologizes as Vic pushes him into a chair and goes to pull a bottle of wine from the cabinet by Marie’s head.

“Dammit,” she mutters with a quick kiss from Marie, “The good ones always are.”

Misha starts paying extra attention to the table he’s setting, and not in any way how close he has to get to set Mike’s spot without looking like an idiot. He still holds his breath the whole time. Mike keeps his hands tucked in his lap and a polite, benign smile on his face, and doesn’t meet Misha’s eyes once.

Dinner goes amazingly well to the surprise of everyone present, including the massive elephant in the room. But the elephant is also gorging itself on Marie’s gnocchi, so maybe it’s understandably distracted. Mike is open and engaging in a broad, expansive way that Misha hasn’t seen before—it’s hard not to stare at, hard not to wonder if this is the way he acts at conventions—talking and laughing and sharing and teasing but without his whole heart in it, without that part of himself Misha keeps looking for when he’s sure Mike’s gaze is elsewhere.

There are only a couple glitches in the conversation, and both are Misha’s fault, both to do with times he forgot he and Mike aren’t speaking or looking directly at each other. It’s never awkward for too long, saved by his family and undeservingly good food. Misha soaks in every word Mike says, even when the stories feel canned and rehearsed. He doesn’t _care_ —this beautiful person at his dining table once made puppy eyes at him, apparently. Life is okay.

He keeps telling himself that when he slips up again and blurts, “You’re Jewish?” over dessert.

“Well,” Mike smiles at his silverware, tilting his head away, “more by birth than practice, yeah.”

Misha finishes weakly with, “I didn’t know that,” unsure what else to say.

Mike laughs, and it doesn’t _sound_ mean. When he says, “How were you supposed to know? I never told you,” though, that stings whether he means it to or not.

The girls have been observing them the whole meal, drinking them in behind their lashes and laughter and Misha should have noticed, been worried, tried to fend it off before Victoria’s phone beeps and she says, “Oop. Our cab will be here two minutes. It was so nice meeting you.”

“Yeah, you too,” Mike says only a little caught off guard, automatically reaching out to shake her hand.

“Cab?” Misha repeats like it’s a foreign word. “What?”

“It told you,” she sighs, “your mattress isn’t fit for anyone with a lumbar to support. I booked us a hotel this afternoon.”

“It’s barely ten.” He tries for light and not you-crafty-bitch-if-by-this-afternoon-you-mean-during-dinner-when-you-went-to-the-bathroom and is not too sure if he pulls it off. “Why don’t you—“

“Marie’s got that cooking show in the morning?” Okay, that is true, but he doesn’t deserve the look quite so severely. “Jeez, Misha, you think we flew all the way to Canada just to see you?” She plants a loud smacking kiss on the top of his head and flicks away some of the gnocchi dough left by Marie grabbing his head, which has most definitely been sitting in his hair the whole meal.

“You are sadistic and mean,” he informs them both as Marie follows suit, scritching short nails through the rest of his hair after she kisses his forehead.

“It’s part of our charm.”

He still carries their bags down to their cab, a) because he’s a good husband, b) because he’s a chival—uh, he’s a man, c) because Mike is still in his apartment, d) because Mike didn’t make any noise about _leaving_ his apartment, and e) because he’s had just enough wine at dinner to not be in a full blown panic about d) and e). He’s sure Victoria wants to say something, give some advice, but she takes one look at his face and pats it instead, Marie following her into the cab with a lazy wink and a, “You put those leftovers in the fridge before they dry out.”

The panic starts gaining more ground on the way back up the stairs. By the time he’s reached the door it’s clawing at the back of his throat, thick and heavy with resignation. He knows how it’s going to go: Mike will say something along the lines of, ‘Nice to see you weren’t lying,’ and Misha will say, ‘Um. Thanks?’ and Mike will add, ‘This time,’ and then, ‘How can I trust you after this, though? That’s right, I can’t. Nice knowing you. Just didn’t want to call you out in front of your…weird little whatever polygamy thing.’ Except Mike will be nicer about it, probably, and that will be worse.

Misha opens the door to his apartment with the timidity of a very small child without its mother. Only…

Only Mike is at the sink, back turned, washing the dishes. By hand.

“I have a dishwasher,” Misha offers tentatively, surprised when Mike jumps a little like he didn’t hear him come in, something heavy thumping in the sink as Mike’s shoulders relax just before he turns.

This is the first time he’s really got to look at Mike since he set the table, not in furtive little glances out of the corner of his eye. He looks good—light blue long-sleeved shirt and a darker letterman vest with a wide cream collar—somehow well put together in a way that doesn’t make Misha feel self conscious of his uncombed hair, dark green bleach stained tee shirt and beat up jeans. Much. And when Misha can drag his eyes away from the superficial to focus on his face…Mike looks good there too. Unreadable, just the natural curve of his lips making them smile, but not homicidal at least.

“There’s nothing wrong with your mattress,” Mike observes after a moment, eyebrows arching.

Misha sighs and leans back against the door with his hands tucked behind his back, bracing for an attack. “Yeah… They aren’t exactly, ah, subtle.”

“But they didn’t know I’d tried out your mattress.”

He looks up sharply at that, stomach squirming, but there’s nothing but bland curiosity in Mike’s tone and his expression. “No,” he admits finally, unsure.

Mike nods just a little, humming noncommittally. Then, “Do they know that I kissed you?”

“Wh—“ The rest of his air comes out in a rush. “ _You_ — What?”

“You do remember me kissing you,” Mike asks, voice low and amused to cover the doubt Misha can hear creeping in.

“What? _Yeah_.” Because the idea of forgetting kissing Michael Rosenbaum is just. Stupid. “I was only—fuzzy on who kissed who.”

“I kissed you,” Mike clarifies in that same semi-detached tone, like a professor talking about a subject he knows forwards and backwards and doesn’t care about anymore. “Then you kissed me back.”

“…Oh,” Misha says when he can swallow again. What the hell else is he supposed to say?

“Alright,” Mike announces, clasping his damply sudsy hands together as if to say, _Let’s get this show on the road,_ and Misha tenses up so hard he’s going to give himself an ulcer. But all Mike says is, “Shots.”

So he’ll probably die of liver failure before then.

~*~

"We could try talking about this sober,” Misha suggests just a little sullenly as Mike lays out the mottled assembly of hard liquor and shot glasses Misha’s accumulated over the years between them. They’re sitting at the dining room table, one on either side, and that’s even weirder with a perfectly good couch not ten feet to their left.

“No way,” Mike informs him just as haughtily, “Sober-you never said word one about a spouse, so I don’t trust it.” Which is not exactly _don’t trust you_ , but close enough for government work. Ask Bill Clinton.

“Neither did drunk-me,” Misha whispers too quiet to hear, keeps his hands in his lap and doesn’t bother hiding what he’s feeling, mostly because he isn’t feeling a hell of a lot. If alcohol poisoning and a mother of all hangovers is his punishment, he’ll take it. He’d do a lot worse for Mike to forgive him.

Then Mike pulls out a folded sheaf of papers from his back pocket and smoothes them flat on the table. “Have you ever played Star Shots?” Mike asks in that voice Misha is beginning to call The Doctor Tone. _Have you ever come in contact with the e. coli virus? Also, turn your head and cough._

He shakes his head.

“It’s a little bit like Never Have I Ever.” One shot is poured, then two and three. “I took the liberty of printing off your Wiki pages—“ He holds them up on display. “—and every time I ask you a question and your answer isn’t what Wiki says…you take a shot. Every time something in here isn’t true, you take another one.”

Misha wants to tell Mike that he’s entirely too fond of drinking games, but he just dips his head in a nod instead. If Mike is surprised at how obedient he’s being he doesn’t show it much.

“Alright,” Mike says, nudging a shot forward with one finger, “What was your first acting role?”

Shit.

“Wait a second,” Misha stalls, “When do you have to take a shot?”

Mike goes still for a second and Misha is suddenly sure he’s going to be the only sloppy mess in the room, Mike feeding him shots dead sober when Misha’s too drunk to do it himself, and is that some form of murder? Then Mike shifts in his chair, dragging out a second packet of papers, and slides them over to Misha like they’re top secret black ops files.

They kind of feel that way in his hands. Like something precious.

“Now answer the question,” Mike says, still mild and polite. “What was your first acting role?”

All those years of not googling himself are about to fuck him up the ass. “Ah… _Liberty Heights,_ ” he tries, hoping against hope, “I was Trey—“

“Wrong!” Mike slides the shot closer without meeting his glare. “Your first role was the part of a four year-old girl opposite your mother when you were five. True or false?”

Misha kicks it back. He’d been banking on the thought that no one would be dumb enough to put that interview on Wikipedia. “True,” he confirms with the burn still in his throat, “Though you won’t find any photographic evidence. Is it your turn?”

Mike smiles slow, not really a real smile but getting there, maybe. It’s not really a surprise that Misha would pick this moment to realize he’s in love, just a quiet little side note that feels like it’s been there for a while. “What was your one line?”

The warm feeling in his stomach blossoms up through his chest, stopped only by the hard press of wood against his sternum as Misha curses the table with a lopsided smile. "’Yes I can. I can believe it because it's true.’"

~*~

“No way!” Misha makes a lunging grasp across the table for Mike’s hand, a move which looks far more inebriated than he actually is. Maybe being around the boys has built up his tolerance. Maybe it’s the fact that he’s too invested in this bizarre experience to let himself feel the effects too much. Maybe it’s the gnocchi.

“You’re not really left handed,” he says, tugging until Mike laughingly gives him a hand, the sound faltering a little when Misha runs his fingertips over Mike’s palm and fingers searching for calluses. The huge stupid table is still in the way, Misha flat on his belly across it, one knee on his chair and his ass, well, up. He didn’t do it on purpose. He’s pretty sure. “Liar,” he says anyway, pushing the shot Mike’s way too fast, leaving a soft puddle of booze in its wake, over his knuckles.

“Am too,” Mike laughs, trying to pull his hand away, “I’m ticklish, too—cut it the fuck out.”

“Liar,” Misha says with more certainty, jabbing his direction with a finger because he can’t quite reach his chest. “I was rolling round with you and Irv and not a single undue giggle. Shooooooot.”

Mike snorts a little but obeys, muttering something that sounds like, “undue,” under his breath. He’s definitely more sober than Misha, though, so he has no excuse.

Misha rolls sideways, wants to roll on his back but isn’t sure the table could support him and yeah, he’s really playing up drunk more than he actually is, so he’s allowed to frown at Mike and say, “Wish you could just talk to me.”

One thing Misha is legitimately fuzzy on right now is facial expressions, but he’s willing to bet Mike’s would be hard to read if he was stone cold sober. He does give Misha’s hand a brief squeeze, though, which helps.

And then he feeds him a shot, which really doesn’t.

Misha lets the glass press against his bottom lip for a second before opening up, tongue working hard to keep from spilling from the awkward angle. He still misses a couple drops, one curling down under his throat. Mike’s hands go still on the glass.

“What.” He swallows again, lets his head rest on his arm so he can blink up at Mike. “What was that for?”

Mike blinks back. “I can’t believe I’m older than you.”

“ _What?_ ” Misha chokes, and then proceeds to climb over the groaning table and land in his lap because, “The fuck you say.” He’d had some sort of vague idea that he needed to be over here to read the Wikipedia pages Mike has, but clutching them and straddling Mike’s thighs he realizes 1) the pages are _about Misha_ , so he probably doesn’t need to check his own birthday, and 2) he is straddling Mike’s thighs.

“You’re thirty-seven?” he drawls accusingly.

“You’re thirty-five?” Mike mirrors. He doesn’t look mad, but Misha’s already established his ability to read faces has been compromised. Then Mike huffs out a little groan and lets his head fall forward, thumping into Misha’s with a hollow sort of pain.

Misha wraps his arms around him and holds on, suddenly feeling not at all steady and way too sober at the same time. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, brow knitting so hard it has to be scrunching Mike’s too, “I’m so, so sorry.”

And something like a dam breaks, something connecting brain to mouth that just snaps like a cut tendon, and Misha’s telling him about everything he never needed to know, about his little brother Sasha’s childhood bullies and how his house burned down in high school and how he moved everywhere all the time and about how he was always, always, always trying to keep his baby sister Danielle away from electrical outlets, about how his mom loves him but doesn’t—won’t—understand his arrangement with Victoria and keeps urging him to have kids and he likes kids, he does, but if he can’t get a dog with Victoria then how is he supposed to—

“Why don’t you think she’d let you get a dog?” Mike breaks in, his voice soft but far more in control than Misha’s.

“I… That’s something we’d need to discuss between the three of us, right?” Misha feels very small and stupid and scared, raw and confused. “I can’t just—add to the family whenever I feel like it.”

“I think.” Mike breaks off, throat working once under the pad of Misha’s thumb. He’s not sure how his hand got there, but he’s glad it is when Mike pulls back, turning his face away. “I think they’d let you have something. Something just for you.”

Misha doesn’t know what to say. He’s pretty sure he’s never learned this language.

“God damn it, Misha,” Mike says without half the anger that he could with the way his hands are on Misha’s shoulders, not shaking yet but grasping hard enough to, “You deserve— You _deserve_ someone who’s always unconditionally, _stupidly_ happy to see you, every single day. Alright? You do.”

There’s a tremulous moment where everything could shatter, and Mike just stares at him, looking for something. Misha’s breathing hard like he’s being kissed, and then, not so suddenly, he is.

Mike stands sudden enough, though, hands under Misha’s thighs lifting him up and onto the table with a soft grunt of effort that curls in Misha’s mouth before he swallows it down. Mike tastes exactly and nothing like he remembers, more real, burn of stubble across his chin and palms where he’s holding Mike’s face in his hands, fingertips curling into his hair. His legs lock and tangle up in Mike’s, pinning him probably too close, bruising a stripe across his thighs where the table’s digging in. Misha doesn’t care; if Mike thinks he’s going to get out of it this time he is very sadly mistaken.

He’s still shaking like a leaf, and not sure when he started. Mike knows, keeps touching him everywhere, firm strokes over his sides, his back, pressing at the dip of his spine to get Misha’s hips closer.

“You—you weren’t just talking about a dog, right?” Misha says when Mike pulls back to breathe, because he has to say something.

Mike’s lashes fall, gaze somewhere in the vicinity of Misha’s mouth and then back up again. Then he pulls his head back, further away, and says, “Kiss me this time and find out.”

Later Misha will think about how it makes sense, Mike checking to make sure because he’s been the only one initiating, but right now? Misha thinks, _Kiss Mike? Okay, twist my arm_ , and dives in.

Mike keeps making him work for it, chase his mouth and writhe under his suddenly still hands trying to coax them into moving. “Come on,” he pants, pleading against Mike’s lips and gets rewarded with a shudder, “Come on, I wasn’t this bad...”

“I’m not…” Mike breaks off on a groan, short and helpless, frustrated. His hands spasm on Misha’s ribs, digging in for a second that makes Misha gasp and squirm into the pressure.

Then suddenly Mike is away, untangled and a good two steps out of Misha’s reach and Misha gapes at him, already a little bit broken. “What—?”

“Take it,” Mike growls, eyes slitted, voice so low it shakes something low in his belly, “Misha, take it.”

Misha’s been ordered to ‘take it’ before, most commonly following the phrase, ‘bend over and.’ That’s not what Mike means. He’s not even telling Misha to top. It’s a challenge, a dare, some lesson he wants Misha to learn.

Well, fuck it.

Misha’s off the table with a fist full of Mike’s shirt dragging him to the bedroom before Mike can make his feet work without stumbling. Misha’s lips twitch in a brief smirk, made even briefer by the sight of his bed and the memories of last time Mike was in it. He’s a little rougher than he needs to be throwing Mike down, first sitting and then flat, angling him backward and back again because some part of him wants to rub Mike all over his sheets in case he leaves.

Maybe some of that shows on his face—maybe he’s just not looking as happy as he should be—because Mike hauls him down belly to belly and licks into his mouth, murmuring wordlessly _I’m here I’m here I’m here_ with every curl of his tongue. It’s still pliant, though, _he’s_ still pliant, letting Misha take what he needs without stealing anything back. Misha doesn’t know what to do.

Shirts. He wants to ask but he knows he can’t, spends far too long fighting with himself, rutting without any real contact below the waist hoping the friction will just shove them out of the way. They don’t, but god the way Mike’s fingers start curling into his skin is heady and addictive. He holds his breath when he does it, drags Mike’s shirt up under his arms and instantly loses himself in all the bare skin at his fingertips, beneath his palms. He’s so fucking warm he trembles a little under the cooler skin of Misha’s hands and Misha thinks, _yeah, yeah, yes,_ and can’t help kissing him again.

The first time Mike rolls his hips up Misha wants to _cry_ it feels so good, gasps off-center to Mike’s mouth before hiding his face in the crook of his neck, rocking down. Mike’s scent floods his senses like he’s drinking it, thick in the back of his throat. Hands wrap around his flanks, pulling him closer, and Misha barely manages to coordinate getting the stupid vest thing off before pulling Mike’s shirt over his head, all without separating more than an inch. But when Mike starts yanking at the back of his t-shirt he has to sit up, letting that motion drag the clothing off him.

This doesn’t feel quite real, Mike under him, Misha’s thighs bracketing his hips and a steady hardness against his seam, those grey blue eyes staring up at him like he invented the moon before he hung it. He _loves_ the soft curve to Mike’s muscles, just a hint of flesh that turns him from Michael Rosenbaum into something—someone— _real_. Just Mike.

“I thought you’d have chest hair,” Mike murmurs with a smile, thumbs teasing the skin above his jeans, the hollows of his hips.

“How do you know I don’t wax?” he asks, just as quiet, letting himself move just a little to see the air catch in Mike’s throat.

“Pretty sure…” Mike touches his bellybutton and lingers for a second when Misha shivers, then follows his barely-there goody trail down to where it disappears. His thumb teases the button, circling it, slipping it half out and back in until Misha catches his wrist.

“Please,” he whispers, choking on the need to beg. “Please?”

“Please what?” Mike says, _asks,_ biting his lips so it’s not a tease. He can’t seem to tear his eyes away from where his hand is playing with Misha’s zipper, Misha trembling with the effort not to hold him there and rub off. “I’ve never—“ His spine bends like a dance move, grinding his erection up against Misha’s ass. “I’ve always—“

“Me too.” It isn’t that he doesn’t want to, he’s just never been given the chance. But—he groans, “Unless you’ve got some serious objections to it, I’d really like you to fuck me. Please.”

“You’re so fucking polite,” Mike chokes out, strangled but amused, hopeful and eager. Misha doesn’t need an engraved invitation with a tone like that, not coupled with the helpless stuttering press of Mike against him. “Misha,” he adds, sounding even more wrecked as Misha resettles with a familiar lube and a strip of condoms (that he really doesn’t remember buying and has a bad feeling that a credit card receipt would say ‘Victoria Vantoch’ on it) from the bedside table. “Misha, you don’t have to beg me. I’m staying.”

“I…think you like it,” he says when he can, still a little shaky, but he doesn’t quite believe it until Mike sighs beneath him, equal parts frustrated and fond. Like Misha’s something special.

“I think I just like _you_.”

It punches some sort of noise out of him, some breathless needy sound and suddenly his jeans feel like they’re suffocating, too tight all over just from the way Mike is still looking at him. He peels them off as fast as he can without moving away, Mike’s hands chasing the denim, sliding over every inch of skin as it’s bared. He looks almost pained by it, and Misha has a moment to freeze before Mike’s breath shudders out of him in a way that purrs arousal better than anything he could have said.

“You aren’t helping,” Misha points out, even more unsteady. Mike hums in acknowledgement while he tugs at the elastic of Misha’s boxers, urging him back up again on trembling thighs. Misha’s leaking already inside the fabric, unmistakably hot and hard, cock arching up towards his belly. He bites the inside of his lip, trying his best not to blush and failing miserably at the expression on Mike’s face—awed and honest and hungry. He’s never had anyone stare at him like that when they weren’t paid to, didn’t really think it would ever happen.

Mike doesn’t try to get them off, though. The boxers. He strokes Misha through his underwear as firmly as if it were skin on skin and Misha almost doubles over it feels so good, not quite rough- or wet-enough cotton molded to his cock, the shaft and especially the head, Mike’s thumb rubbing over the slit to get the fabric even darker with precome. Misha can’t help rutting against his touch, rocking forward into Mike’s hand and back against the stiffness in Mike’s jeans. _Fuck_ me _,_ he thinks, and then, _wait, no, not if it makes this stop, god._ Mike’s fingers drag lower, rolling over his balls as his other hand keeps him moving at the small of his back, and then those fingers press deeper, rubbing the slight rasp of cloth over and around his hole.

“Jesus _Christ_ ,” Misha cries out, collapsing forward and barely catching himself on a wrist either side of Mike’s head. “Are you trying to kill me?” he begs, not sure what he’s begging for.

“There are different ways to fuck you,” Mike grins, before Misha captures his mouth and bites it. “You really want me in here?” he asks with another torturous press, almost getting the tip of one finger inside before Misha’s hips jerk and knock him loose. He’s back in an instant, rubbing a slow, dragging circle. “You want my dick inside you?”

In a brief moment of coherency Misha realizes it’s a real question, like Mike honest to god doesn’t know. He thinks about “Bob” and then he thinks about killing him.

“Yeah,” he breathes instead, pouring every ounce of just how much he does into it. “Yeah I do, Mike, please.”

“Fuck, you don’t…” Mike cuts himself off or forgets that he’s speaking, either way pulling Misha up a little more so he can get the boxers off. Misha wants to protest that it’s not fair being the only one naked, but Mike’s hand wraps around his cock before it even had time to register a temperature change, and Misha’s just a little too busy keening to care.

He bites his lip to shut up, not quite hard enough to draw blood because he’s not stupid, he’s just got Mike Rosenbaum fondling his dick holy mother of fuck. Mike props himself up on one elbow to get a better look, thumb toying with his foreskin, dragging it up and down and around and—Misha grabs his wrist, desperate. “I really…cannot go more than once in a row,” he promises, and hopes Mike gets it.

He does, sort of, or the torn look on his face seems to, but the thumb in question can’t help dragging over his tip one more time to smear precome under the head. Misha hisses something like Mike’s name and slaps the tube of lube into his hand to distract it. Or just give it something else to hold while Misha guides his own slick fingers to his hole.

It already feels a little tender from Mike playing with it and he swallows a moan at the first slide in. He doesn’t really like slicking himself up—at least not over the alternative. Fingers can get so much deeper, twist so much farther when they belong to someone else. But Mike probably hasn’t opened somebody else before and like hell is Misha going to have him baulk before the main event. He works in another finger and cants his hips back and down into the touch, letting his head fall heavy between his shoulders when he manages to graze that spot.

Mike’s hands are restlessly soothing over his skin, skimming over his shoulders and down, under his shoulder blades and lower, following the curve of his ass. “One more?” he says like a question other than the one he’s asking but Misha can’t decipher it, nods a little shakily. Then before he can obey one of Mike’s fingers is sliding in next to his, just dry enough to burn in a really good way and Misha tries to muffle the worst of his noises against Mike’s neck.

“Oh…Misha,” Mike murmurs, mouthing the words against his collarbone.

Misha whimpers in response, tasting Mike when he licks his lips. When Mike stays still and he can somewhat breathe again he grumbles, “Don’t even have your pants off,” just to feel Mike’s huff of laughter.

“Gonna do something about that?”

“Uhn,” Misha says, the put-upon sound of someone with fingers up their ass, thanks, but it’s not too hard a decision to make when it comes down to it. He really wants to get Mike out of his clothes. Mike pulls out when Misha does, leaving him wet and loose and borderline uncomfortably hard.

Misha strips him so fast he might even take a little skin with it. Mike looks stuck between startled, embarrassed, and amused, none of which Misha really cares about. Mike’s _naked._ In his bed. _Mike is naked in his bed._ And god _fuck_ does he look good doing it.

He makes a helpless noise in the back of his throat as he crawls close again, Mike’s thighs parting automatically to let him in. Misha strokes a hand down one flank and makes a couple feeble attempts not to say the first thing that comes to mind after _hot pretty thick want want want_ and fails pretty badly. But he gets to thumb Mike’s circumcision scar while he does it, so it’s a win/win situation. “So you really are Jewish.”

Mike’s laughter sounds a little strained, but payback’s a bitch. Misha isn’t going to be shy, not when Mike’s fingers have been where they’ve been. “Did you just—“ he tries and gives up, letting his head fall back between his shoulders. “Have you actually seen _Mrs. Henderson Presents?_ ”

“We are not discussing Judi Dench right now,” Misha hums, mostly to watch Mike shudder at how close his mouth is to his dick. It’s just a little bit thicker, not quite as long, and seriously the prettiest cock Misha’s ever seen, not that that’s saying much. He’s leaking just a little from the slit, one pearly bead of precome Misha wants to get his mouth on so bad he’s almost gagging for it. He lets his lips part, breath fanning hot over the shaft, hands pinning Mike down pressed flat in the cut of his hips, and his tongue snakes out, almost but not quite touching. “You don’t have the clap or anything, do you?”

“Jesus. Christ.” It comes out mangled, barely intelligible at all. And Mike still doesn’t tell him what to do, just flexes his fingers around Misha’s forearm and shoulder and holds on.

Misha licks him once, gathers that taste and rolls it on his tongue as Mike bucks under him with a curse. He tastes like salt, not bad, not a flavor that’s going to be a bubblegum any time soon, but still. _Good_. Really good. Hot. Something he’s going to look into later, if he gets a later. Mike breaking into a sweat is definitely going on that list too. Right now, condom. It’s vaguely pink, and he’s going to kill Victoria just as soon as he gets though thanking her on his hands and knees.

It doesn’t looks so bad with Mike’s dick filling it though. Misha’s mouth waters even more, even though he knows going down on him right now would taste like latex. Instead he runs his hands over the bone in Mike’s hips, cut of his muscle where sweat’s starting to gather, teasing at the soft brown hair around his balls.

“Second thoughts?” Mike asks, because of course he would read it wrong.

“ _No,_ ” Misha says, maybe a little too emphatically as he crawls up Mike’s body. “Just.” And he doesn’t know how to say _I love you_ yet, so he has to settle for, “You’re kind of amazing. You’re kind of beautiful.”

Mike’s breath comes a little shakily. “Only kind of?”

Misha grins, shrugs, and leans in for a kiss. “Eh, you’re alright.” Then he angles himself down to take Mike inside.

It has been…far too fucking long since he had anything but his own fingers or his trusty dildo inside him; he almost forgot what it was like, something hot and hard and pulsing and undeniably _someone_ filling him up, and Misha’s never had it the other way around but if the look on Mike’s face is anything to go by they are trying it out, the end. Misha’s gasping deep in the back of his throat but Mike looks like he’s about to come out of his _skin_.

“Jesus—Fuck, tight,” Mike chokes. His hands are clenching and releasing restlessly over Misha’s flanks, his hips. “I—God…Misha, _tight._ ”

Misha can’t find air enough to talk, just grinds down, rocking his hips, feeling every inch of Mike’s cock stretching him open. Air shudders out of his throat and back in, head back and jaw low. Mike’s too—fucking much to look at, too much of everything, and Misha leans a little desperately into the hand fit to the side of his throat, needing something to ground him as he moves.

“How are you real?” Mike asks, seeking out eye contact like he expects an answer. “How are you even real?”

 _How are_ you _?_ Misha wants to ask back, words jarred and tangled in his throat with the first thrust of Mike’s hips. His lips move soundlessly, fumbling kisses against Mike’s chin and jaw, the corner of his mouth. Mike breathes in his cries, guiding him when he can’t for the life of his coordinate his limbs. He’s never once been able to come just from this, didn’t think anyone actually _could_ , but god, fuck, damn it, Mike’s getting him closer to that than anyone ever has. He wants to protect himself, irrationally, and Mike just peels back his defenses and licks broad soothing swathes across the wounds.

Mike works a hand between them before Misha notices, before he can warn him, and one fucking stroke is all it takes to tear his orgasm out with a sharp, gunshot snap of his hips and a sound like he’s dying. He can’t breathe _,_ doesn’t even realize he can’t until Mike whimpers, “Oh fuck, Christ, _Misha,”_ and jerks against him, shivers wracking his body hard enough to force him even deeper inside Misha’s convulsing grip.

It takes forever to come down, forever to feel like his brain isn’t actually splattered across Mike’s stomach. He wants to move if only to stop crushing the man beneath him, but for all that he could at one point in his life bend himself into a pretzel he does not have the muscle coordination for this. He’s pretty sure he no longer has muscles at all.

He realizes Mike is stroking the thin skin over his hip bone, slow smooth circles and swirls that tickle as much as they make him tremble. “Broke me,” he grunts out eventually when twitching away doesn’t discourage him.

“I have it on good authority that you go on a ten day yoga retreat every year with Balinese monks, so…” Mike pauses to kiss just behind Misha’s ear. “I think you’ll be okay.”

“They’re not in Bali,” Misha grumbles, face mashed to Mike’s neck. “And they’re certainly not ten days. I have a life. I have minions.” He sighs as Mike hums amused agreement and rolls him over with a gentle, wet sound when he slides free. Misha wriggles a little in the sheets while Mike ties off the condom, getting used to the feeling of being empty again, before he slides one eye open and squints.

“What?” Mike asks, too wide-eyed post sex to be taken seriously. Misha stares. “Okay, you cannot think you’re the only—“

“You have a _twitter?_ ” If Misha’s spine hadn’t been liquefied he’d have definitely jerked upright; as it is, he frowns, very disapprovingly. “That’s—you didn’t tell me you have a twitter.”

He wants to eat his own tongue afterwards, but Mike just rolls his eyes. “Misha, you don’t even follow Michelle Obama anymore.”

Misha keeps his glare as steady as he can as Mike slides an arm around his shoulders and hauls him close. “Hardly the point.”

He rests his head over Mike’s heart just in time to feel him chuckle, low rumble running counterpoint to his heartbeat. There’s still a quiet tension to them both that makes him hold on a little tighter as he picks up the words and puts them in order.

“Are you in this?” Misha asks, hand shaking just a little on Mike’s sternum. He’s almost sure his voice is going to give out on him before he finishes, “Can I keep you?”

After a moment, Mike says, “I come with an Irv. If that’s okay.”

Misha kisses him to shut him up, but for a lot of other reasons too.

~*~

 

 

 

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the end.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic of] A Certain Sense of Synergy Between Yourself and Me](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5700424) by [exmanhater](https://archiveofourown.org/users/exmanhater/pseuds/exmanhater)




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